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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: waitwatchwander who wrote (25817)	11/20/2009 6:12:40 PM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Respond to of 36921

Thanks NF. It's silly that the idea of congestion tolls is considered such an enormously difficult idea to accept. It shows that most people are bludging dullards who want a free ride at the expense of others. The obvious answer to busy roads is congestion tolls so that the capacity of the roads matches those wanting to use them. If not at capacity, lower the toll, to zero if possible. As the road nears capacity, increase the toll until people decide to make alternative arrangements such as phoning instead, staying at home to work, paying couriers to deliver, or traveling at a less congested time. Pricing is the way supply and demand are balanced in sensible systems. In selling growing and selling tomatoes, price is the arbiter of who grows how many and who buys them. People seem to think roads should be free though they are enormously expensive to build. Presumably the freedom riders think there should be free lunches and free car factories too. The main problem with road congestion is the 5% of people who are incapable of operating their vehicles effectively, being bewildered at anything that crops up, causing a log-jam of people stuck behind them. Those are the same people least likely to use roads when congested and heavily tolled, so capacity would increase when needed by keeping them off the road. Those who lack the intellectual capacity to operate their vehicle effectively are unlikely to have spare money to spend on tolls and their journeys are probably of low value too, so they have less need than others to travel during congestion. It isn't HOT lanes which are needed, it's HOT roads in all lanes. Mqurice