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Yes. $30 seems like a lot to me for this and it's kind of shocking, but we're not talking about price gouging for food, water, or some basic necessity. We're ra
by ohyoutravel 10y ago
Yes. $30 seems like a lot to me for this and it's kind of shocking, but we're not talking about price gouging for food, water, or some basic necessity. We're raising the price of toll lanes specifically built as express lanes and funded through these tolls. They just get people home faster than the regular lanes.
Additionally, I suspect that in these conditions if they charged the regular prices, so many people would take the express lanes that they would slow to a crawl like the rest of the road, frustrating their purpose.
- denzil_correa 10y ago> They just get people home faster than the regular lanes. OR - the other people who can't use these lanes get to their destination slower?
- aninhumer 10y agoNo, the express lane also makes the non-express lanes faster than they would be otherwise, by increasing overall capacity (although that's ignoring induced traffic).
- denzil_correa 10y agoYes and why is $30 the right price to do so?
- jburwell 10y agoAs someone who lives in the region, the lanes are complete gouging. They diverted a tremendous amount of tax dollars to build them, and then turned them over to a private company to collect these dynamic tolls. Part of the deal is that cars with 3+ people don't pay tolls. The 495 corridor is one of the worst traffic areas in the United States -- the number of lanes needs to be doubled to support current demand. In past snow storms, it has jammed up so severely that cars ran out of gas sitting in traffic. When severe weather occurs, Virginia needs to eliminate the tolls and open up as many lanes as possible. We paid for the lanes, and we should be able to use them when we need them most.