This newspaper has been advocating the use of congestion pricing for several years now. (See, e.g., “This HOT Idea Cound Resolve the Congestion Conundrum,“ July 23, 2002, about the use of high-occupancy toll—HOT—lanes.)

It’s nice to see the rest of the country is catching up.

As the USA Today story notes:

The average driver in the Los Angeles area spends the equivalent of more than two workweeks each year stuck in traffic. But one place where cars and trucks hum along at full speed is in the left lanes of a 10-mile stretch of State Road 91, an east-west highway in Orange County.

That’s because those lanes use a toll system known as “congestion pricing.“ Tolls on SR 91 vary depending on time of day, from $1.15 to $9.25, and are priced to keep traffic moving.

Road space is finite, and always will be. There are only two ways to ration finite goods: lines and prices. Take your pick.

And what causes you, Margie, to so boldly infer that I’m some naive brat who grew up in a well-to-do household?  I’m not angry…I actually find the mischaracterization very humorous. And so would my family!

Thankyou Margie!!!!

All taxs are punitive…

They only serve to punish the people who live paycheck to paycheck.

Congestion tax
Carbon tax
Food tax
Geeezzzzz

Raise taxs and push the fragile family past their breaking point.

Then we have to give them housing and food assistance.

What since does that make?

Take in more money, but in turn we have to spend more because those on the financial edge fell off.
This kind of thinking makes sense only to a bunch of liberals.

Margie…
I still dont think you know that your a conservative at heart…LOL!

Thanks for the lesson Margie. My definition of a “poor” person did not include the working class, who work very hard to make ends meet.

When I think of a “poor” person, I think of someone who DOESN’T make ends meet! I’d have not attacked the opponents’ terminology if they would have (more accurately) said that “the working classes” could be harmed by the toll.

But still—even so—the difference a higher toll makes could still be met after one cuts back slightly on other, more frivolous expenses (the god-almighty cell phone for example). If a person values their job and their family enough, that is.

Larry, I hate to give you a quick education on the working poor, but they are the ones affected: The waitress, counting her tips to see if there is gas money to get home, money to stop at the store and buy supper, lunch money for the kids for the next day, and lunch and gas money for the main worker in the family because his check goes to pay the bills. Week in and week out. It does not take much to sink this delicately balanced ship. I’m glad you were sheltered from this kind of hanging-on-by-your -fingernails life, but don’t blithely assume you know anything about it. No offense intended.

The USA Today article (that you linked to above) quickly mentioned a few reasons why some oppose congestion pricing. I’d like to pick one of these reasons apart:

“(Opponents of congestion pricing) also argue that the poor can’t afford expensive new lanes.“

The Poor cannot afford car insurance, nor can they even afford the fuel required to make the car go. The poor, thus, most often do NOT drive at all! And so the truly poor will not be affected by the new congestion pricing.

NEXT!

Jeez, North Dakota to Richmond must be an awful commute.

1) It certainly sounds like you were making fun of someone. I am sure if I searched the TD archives I could come up with a few choice comments from your predecessor on ‘Red’ Ken Livingstone.

2)You broached the subject from a Virginian point of view, and I decided to give it some international perspective. That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate the discussion topic or your ‘hypothetical’ agreement.

3)I agree the Times Disgrace moniker is getting old and crusty. I will try to follow your suggestion and use CRIMES-Disgrace. Maybe Byle Weekly will catch on also.

Yours,
Snot Buger

“Home, home on the range—“. I’m with you, Rob. But I can’t imagine wanting to live in the forbiding terrain and numbing winters of North Dakota. The green valleys and mild weather, (in comparison), of rural Virginia is something you should experience.

Couple things, Scott:

(1) No, we haven’t. In the editorial, “Battle of Britain,“ we made light of the diplomatic dispute between London mayor Ken Livingstone and the American Embassy in London over whether U.S. diplomats were obliged to pay the congestion tolls. The Americans called the levy a tax and said they weren’t; the Brits said it was not a tax and said they were. We didn’t say either side was right. The editorial simply and gently ribbed the diplomatic corps for its renowned discretion: “This time, though, the war is a diplomatic one, so it is being fought politely and ever-so-discreetly. Just how discreetly becomes obvious when an American newspaper reports that an American spokesman for the American Embassy in London is not authorized to talk to American reporters about the subject.“

(2) Let’s assume—just for the sake of argument—that we DID make fun of Livingston’s congestion tax years ago, and that upon reflection and further reading we decided Livingstone was right after all. Are you suggesting, in this hypothetical case, that you would have be happier if we hadn’t done so, and instead had truculently refused to entertain the possibility that someone on the left might be right?

(3) Bonus third point: If you’re going to engage in kindargarten-level name-calling while you use the resources of Media General to post your views, at least do it right: It’s CRIMES-Disgrace. Don’t forget the hyphen, either.

As global warming is even more on my mind than road congestion, I suggest a carbon tax. That will kill two birds with one stone- provide a revenue stream for road construction and repair that is actually derived from the end user, and also encourage carpooling and the use of mass transit.
The problem that I see with highways is that costs are hidden and there is an incentive to exploit resources rather than to conserve them. The General Assembly in their infinite wisdom, especially the Republican no tax crowd in the House, love to hide the fact that road money has to come from somewhere. They are more willing to borrow 2.5 billion to pay for a cost that occurs every year than they are to use the word “tax”.

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