Saturday, April 14, 2018

Glimpses of the future of toll roads: 1995 and 2018

1995

New Toll Road Offers Glimpse at Future.  (The New York Times, 9/29/1995)
But the new highway, the 14.1-mile Dulles Greenway, is viewed as more than a quicker alternative to a stuttering trip through a dozen traffic lights along nearby state roads. It is, government officials and transportation experts say, a prime example of the way big public construction projects will be built in the future. 
Those experts say that with fewer tax dollars available, with a reluctance by elected officials to impose new taxes and with increasing demands on existing structures, capital improvements and new projects may be possible only with at least some private financing.




Virginia's $40 toll road better be the future of driving.  (WIRED, 12/9/2017)
The nice thing about congestion charges isn't just that they can encourage people to take public transit, or at least to carpool, but that they make drivers pay for their role in creating traffic and spewing greenhouse gases. Forty bucks is a lot for a toll, but it just might be the fair price for the right to drive by yourself down a majorly busy highway. The scourge we know as traffic costs the American economy about $125 billion to traffic per year, according to traffic analytics company Inrix.



Other Rand McNally Road Atlas as a file drawer post:
Trump's America: Return to Worthington and Nobles County, Minnesota 22 years later.  (1/28/2018)

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