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Colin W Kingsbury wrote:

Up here in Taxachusetts there's a long-standing feud over tolls on the
Massachusetts Turnpike. The law that authorized the bond issue to build the
pike said, tolls will be charged until the bonds are paid off, then the
tolls shall end. Well, the bonds were paid off more than 10 years ago, but
the tollbooths persist. A couple years back when the debate flared up, the
tollbooth defenders said, "well, if we quit collecting tolls, the state will
need to come up with that $200 million some other way." Funny part is, the
accountants opened the books and figured that staffing and maintaining the
tollbooths cost the state about 60 cents on every dollar of tolls they
collected. So the net cost to the state of shutting down the tolls would be
only $80 million.

The same thing is going on here in New Jersey, only they figured the cost of
collecting the tolls at over 80 cents on the dollar. When you figure in the
Federal highway funds that they can't get because the GSP and NJT are toll
roads, the State would make a net *profit* by eliminating the toll booths.

The problem is that the State set up a bureaucracy decades ago to run the toll
roads. This group knows that their jobs and power base disappears if the roads
become free, so they are continually borrowing money to "improve" the toll
system. These loans could not legally be repaid with Federal highway funds. Four
years ago it was "EZPass." The latest effort is to remove half the toll stations
in one direction, expand those in the other direction, and double the tolls.

The signs say "The inconvenience is temporary -- the improvements permanent." So
are the tolls, it seems.

George Patterson
I prefer Heaven for climate but Hell for company.