MTA considering charging $1 "Green Fee"

[dps]

Being grandfathered meant that you could keep the tolls at the expense of highway funding.  It doesn't meant that you can keep your tolls AND highway funding.  If you're not grandfathered, then you actually don't even have an option of adding tolls, unless the federal government allows you to.

Ok, but there's a big difference between what Tonitrus posted (a state can't get federal funding for a particular interstate highway if it's tolled) and what you posted, which implied that a state can't get any federal highway money at all if it has a tolled interstate.

[DGuller]

Being grandfathered meant that you could keep the tolls at the expense of highway funding.  It doesn't meant that you can keep your tolls AND highway funding.  If you're not grandfathered, then you actually don't even have an option of adding tolls, unless the federal government allows you to.

Ok, but there's a big difference between what Tonitrus posted (a state can't get federal funding for a particular interstate highway if it's tolled) and what you posted, which implied that a state can't get any federal highway money at all if it has a tolled interstate.

Bad wording on my part then.

[garbon]

So I didn't realize it but the MTA has changed it so that starting in March there will be this additional $1 fee for new cards.

[garbon]

OWS is getting pissy about fare hike.

http://nofarehikes.net/pdfs/swipebackflyer.pdf

Are you upset about endless fare
hikes every two years?

Yeah, us too. We want to stop those hikes, and make
the city find other ways to fund the subway, like for
instance renegotiating the derivatives contracts that
Wall St suckered them into.

We've tried to talk to them. But they won't listen. So
we have to protest. We would boycott the subway, if
we could. But since it's an essential public service, we
need it, to get to our jobs and live our lives. So instead
of boycotting, we find ways to express our protest, like
this: If you use your unlimited card to swipe someone
else in, then you're effectively helping them boycott
the fare hike, sort of like boycotting it forward. You're
also helping fellow New Yorkers who can't afford transit
that's funded like a regressive tax.

Since you're giving the swipe away, not selling it, this is
perfectly legal. Even better, it's an easy, effective way
to tell the MTA to "take a hike".

[Neil]

Of course.  But unless you're going to argue that the positive externalities are equal to or greater than the increased taxes that would be needed to do away with subway fares, you're still left with a car owner, or a walker, or a biker, or a shut-in paying someone else to ride the subway.

Is that a bad thing?