The new “congestion toll” study proposed by VDOT is a good reason to clean house. And the Commonwealth of Virginia needs to use a big broom to sweep this malfunctioning agency clean.
The theory is to price tolls based on real time congestion on the highway in question. Should the roadway be happily moving along then there would be no toll. Barring all the other problems associated with this plan, the implementation logistics alone should send this proposal to some bureaucrat’s trash can.
Please tell me how this theory could be implemented. In order to determine actual congestion the road would have to be equipped with sophisticated sensors that would regulate the toll amount. The taxpayer dollars spent on this equipment could be put to a much higher use by applying the funds to the cost of our highway wish list.
Pray tell me how “congestion pricing” could practically be staffed. Would the highway sensors feed into some sophisticated phone notification system that would ring the toll takers at home and have them appear for work at a moment’s notice? Then would the same system send them home 15 minutes later when the traffic had cleared?
Most certainly VDOT would, instead, base the toll on an arbitrary division between “rush hour” and “non rush hour”. Such a plan would immediately void the mission. It would not be a “congestion toll” at all, but someone’s value judgement regarding when the road might logically be crowded.
An argument used to support the plan is the statement that “About 10 percent of all morning rush-hour vehicles are occupied by people on nonessential trip such as shopping or personal errands.” Has Big Brother been at work monitoring Virginia highways? How can a government agency realistically know the composition of the automobiles on a given highway? And who can make the determination as to whether a person’s trip is essential or non-essential? I would suspect that most people making a trip on our region’s highways during rush hour would consider their trip essential.
Don’t punish our citizens for driving to work, school, or a doctor appointment. If you want to use tolls to raise money for road construction then that’s an acceptable plan. But it is a fair plan only if you impose the toll on all drivers using the highway in question, regardless of the time of day. Don’t arbitrarily punish the people who have to work for a living. Toll Everyone. Or Toll None!