Email from reader:
Hello Sal:
On Sep 3, 2007, the Harris County Toll Road Authority is again increasing tolls.
I drive the Sam Houston Tollway to visit my mother in north Houston at least once a month. When I first used the tollway in the early 1990s, the tolls were $0.75. Now, the tolls will be $1.50--a 100% increase in 16 years!! The last increase was in Oct 2003, which means tolls are currently increasing more than 6% a year, much more rapidly than the rate of inflation.
Data on their website reveals the HCTRA's gross toll revenues were:
2003, $244,171,000
2004, $265, 913,000
2005, $317,712,000
2006, $349,341,000
HCTRA's gross toll revenues have increased 43% for the past four years. Yet, they want even more money!!!
I wish my income would have gone up 43% in that same period!
The facts debunk the HCTRAs assertions, in the article at the link, that the toll rate jump is a "small increase." Moreover, the HCTRA is disingenuous in their press release by asserting tolls are not tax dollars.
Tolls collected on HCTRA roadways are used to fund maintenance and upkeep of the existing toll roads and to meet future expansion needs-without using tax dollars.
There is no doubt that an agency with the authority to toll highways becomes a money-gobbling bureaucracy increasing their intake more and more each year.
Eugene Richardson
San Antonio TX
With fees, this (Toll) surprise cost me $1 per mile
Last month, I made a rare trip to D/FW Airport and took State Highway 121 from Interstate 35E in Lewisville. I saw signs informing me a toll road was ahead, but I never saw a tollbooth.
To my surprise, I received a bill from North Texas Tollway Authority this week. My total video toll charges were 60 cents. My invoice fee was $1. In addition, I will have to pay 41 cents to mail my payment, as the NTTA has gathered enough personal information about me already by videotaping me without notice and I will not be paying by credit card to its website.
My total toll for traveling about two miles on Highway 121 is $2.01, about a dollar a mile.
Taryn McColpin, Denton
2 comments:
I don't know why everyone doesn't buy a can of the camera defeating spraypaint and paint your lisense plates so the cameras cannot read the tag numbers! This works and so far is legal although I am sure they will try to make it illegal.
I don't want any tolls! I paid for the roads so why should I have to pay to use them? And, another country controls them? Not my idea of American/Texas sovereignty.
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