Toll roads are for the rich
“You won’t see anything but Land Rovers, Mercedes and Beamers,” says one toll road user in Denver. “No one else can afford it.” One of our San Antonio Toll Party members refers to them as Lexus Lanes, and that’s exactly right!
Junk Bond Status
Last month, Fitch Ratings downgraded the debt for Northwest Parkway in Denver to junk bond status. Guess why? Because growth was less than projected. Guess what they’re doing now? RAISING THE TOLL RATES to make-up for their higher interest payments due the shortfalls and higher debt load.
Non-compete agreements are the devil in the details!
“In the mid-1990s, to get the toll roads built, eight communities agreed that they would not compete with the toll road. They cut a deal to limit what roads could be improved, expanded or even built.”
Read about it in the Denver Post.
Toll roads lead to government at its worst…toll roads are bad fiscal policy, they’re more expensive to build and maintain, they’re based on implausible assumptions that growth projections will be the same with or without a toll road (it shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to know that once you toll a road, it changes people’s behavior…you bet it will slow down growth, who wants to live where you have to pay a toll to get to work, school, or shop?), they use gas tax money to build them and yet you can’t drive on them, the non-compete agreements prevent the maintenance and building of other free roadways, and they give control to a private company who’s primary goal is profit not efficient travel for all taxpayers.
Our politicians MUST BE STOPPED…they’ve sold out the public interest to special interests and we’ll be paying for their corruption for generations. Is this the inheritance we want to leave our children and grandchildren…an America where you cannot travel about with affordability and freedom? Where simply driving to work will cripple the family budget and take away their ability to provide a better quality of life since basic transportation costs will gobble up their dreams? Say, “No!” to this toll road corruption and bad fiscal policy. We’ve demonstrated for months that we can do better with much less cost and continue to build highways EVERYONE can use. Our politicans are CHOOSING NOT to do it!