RI asks Feds for permission to put tolls on I-95

[DontSayBanana]

  Both you and I were talking somewhat tongue in cheek.

The limited success of toll-elimination is generally due, IMO, to the high cost of maintaining some roads, particularly those in area where weather is bad (excludes NJ and Delaware). No sooner is a road paid off than it needs to be rebuilt.

Ha, NJ roads are a racket.  The vast majority of state-supplied road construction comes from one company, which milks the jobs for far, far longer than the actual work lasts (2-hour workdays sometimes!), and the final product is so shoddy that most roads need to be redone within 5 years (I've personally seen some of this company's work deteriorate within 6 months on residential roads).

Oh, and fun note: all those ARRA infrastructure jobs that were created?  In NJ, the same single company got almost all of the ARRA contracts.  It did squat here.

[Faeelin]

Under Christie? How can that be?

[DontSayBanana]

Under Christie? How can that be?

Corzine was still in charge when the ARRA contracts were handed out.

[Monoriu]

Tolls are very common in HK, China and Japan, so I don't understand what's the big deal about this.

[Neil]

Tolls are very common in HK, China and Japan, so I don't understand what's the big deal about this.

All three of those places are backwards and barbaric though.

[Monoriu]

HK only charges for bridges and tunnels, not highways per se.  But we are so small that it is difficult to drive on a highway without going through a toll booth somewhere 

Japan's tolls are nasty.  Granted, my experience is limited to Okinawa and Hokkaido, but their tolls are steep.  Like US$10 per highway exit or something.

China's system is the most chaotic, arbitrary and random.  The system is controlled by various local governments, which there are at least four levels officially.  Every level has its own toll booths and they are just everywhere.  I recently read a study that says it costs less to transport a box from Guangdong province to New York than from Guangdong to Beijing by truck.

[Valmy]

Tolls on the interstate?  America is kind of a silly place, isn't it?

We don't have tolls down here.  Only silly, greedy Jew Yankees have them. 

Hey!  It is one of our brilliant plans to run Texas without an income tax.

And stetsons in Kentucky?

[Eddie Teach]

And stetsons in Kentucky?

Course, he does get a lot of comments on it.