Well, there’s the revenue problem right there. On weekends and holidays abolish the speed limit, get rid of the cops and sell franchises to private ambulance services and wrecker haulers. Half of southern California will come to see what their cars can do; the other half will come to watch the carnage.

So after long dogging the commuters twice they promise to only wiggle a little.

75% of revenue goes towards salary and benefits of the bridge authority. Large amounts of revenue were spent dredging the river rather than charging the shipping companies (can’t scare away business you know) and also for waterfront development. I guess the development was a bad investment requiring tolls taken from drivers to make it viable.

The bridges are in sad shape, so they tell us the increase is for repairs. they have 35 million in the bank, of course that is called an emergency fund and can’t be spent. Their emergency, not yours.

The people on the board are all connected politicians and lawyers. Surprised?

It’s not 133, 241 or 261 that are the problem, but rather 73. A recent article in the Orange County register noted that the 73 was in financial trouble, not 133, 241 and 261:

I’m surprised, since the 73 bypass the terrifying 26-lane-wide El Toro Y. A friend of mine worked at the toll collection booth there for a while…a lot of money goes through there. But not enough, I guess.

It’s not 133, 241 or 261 that are the problem, but rather 73. A recent article in the Orange County register noted that the 73 was in financial trouble, not 133, 241 and 261:

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1678840.php

These are beautiful roads, albeit infested by police.

This is only a recent phenomenom. CHP was never seen on the 241 until a year ago. Following that time, I routinely observed 3 to 5 CHP between a 3 to 5 mile stretch of road (Lake Forest to the 133) and another 2 to 4 just a few more miles up the road (Santiago Canyon to the toll plaza near 91). All within 15 minutes of driving.

Recently, however, I have only spotted 1 or 2 along my entire commute, even then it is not a daily occurence as it used to be.

I bought two. Does that help?

But seriously, privatization of highways is stupid. So let’s fix it. Take the whole Orange County system by eminent domain and put it in public hands where it belongs.

These are beautiful roads, albeit infested by police. They also are routed for real gains in transit times between key points around OC and to neighboring counties. And still, they are under-used while the I-5/I-405/91 corridors remain congested. TCA hit a price wall with the public from first ribbon-cutting, so we’re seeing that at least in California, people value dollars over their time.

Phil

Of course enough years have gone by that Hartford has been floating the idea of reinstating the tolls.

Oh yeah, don’t even get me started on privatization, a very expensive lesson on that is being learned right now.

From where I’m sitting:

Total construction cost = $1.7B
Taxpayer “donations” = $400M
Driver yearly “donation” = $300M
Toll road annual cost = $75M
Number of years in operation = 9

So, for 2008 the tally should look like this:

$0.4B + ($0.3B – $0.08M) * 9- $1.7B = +$0.68B

By these over-simplified calculations, TCA is up something more than 500 million dollars so far.

What, exactly, is getting bailed out here????

Where is the accountability for this?

And $85mm to run a collection system for toll revenue, a system that should be automated?? Who got the contract for that?

Usual politics in play here. No better than GM or LAUSD.

Please, everyone, do not re-elect incumbent candidates. This is what you get.

You guys in California can do better than that. Here in Illinois (don’t forget to pronounce the s at the end) we spend at least 60% of our tolls on running the toll road.

I mean where are all the precinct captains going to get jobs? Can’t be Police or Fireman anymore, so that is why god created tollway authorities.

I find it disturbing that California is only spending 23% collecting the tolls. They need to shape up and recognize all the money they are leaving on the table. Then the Feds will HAVE to give you money. A win-win for everyone.

F*** California