Oh, and that multi-multi billion dollar one-mile hole called the "Big Dig" has done absolutely nothing except become a huge money pit and make many of Mitt's buddies very, very wealthy
The man who designed the big dig backed out of the process when they cut the increase in public transportation. The public transportation portion was 60% of the original project and was the key to eliviating the traffic problem.
I quickly discovered the rule in Boston about street signs (that name the street). Put one where the street starts and one where it ends.
The way to fix the traffic problem is not by adding new highways or widening existing ones, but by
In general, tolls have not risen with inflation. Taking a trip on the MA tpk should cost in tolls about what it costs in gasoline.
Bike lanes will work for 4 months a year. Add tolls AFTER they upgrade public transportation. That’s a 40billion dollar project.
you need the tolls to pay for the upgrade, typically.
The last time I drove in Boston was in 1965 and the traffic was bad then already. Boston also had the dubious distinction of having the highest car insurance rates in the country.
I remember when the HOV lanes first appeared generating mannequin and blow-up doll “passengers” and the pregnant woman who argued her vehicle had 2 occupants. LOL
About 10+ years ago in Boston a man pleaded innocent for the ticket he got in the HOV lane. His defense was that technically there was another person in the coffin in the back of the Hearst as he was driving to the funeral hone he owned.
I-95 south of DC has two separate lanes heading in each direction that are HOV lanes. They alleviate traffic problems in Northern Virginia close to DC, but the southbound lanes cause a huge backup 7 days a week at Quantico where the HOV lanes end. Frequently the traffic does not normalize until very close to Richmond.
Was it William Randolph Hearst?
@VDCdriver
" ‘His defense was that technically there was another person in the coffin in the back of the Hearst…’
Was it William Randolph Hearst? "
VDC, what took you so long? Where have you been? I’ve been waiting.
I knew you couldn’t resist! 
CSA
Bill Russell, loading more costs on commuters who have no choice but to drive there is not the answer. Why is it that every time there’s a problem someone thinks that if they make the working people suffer until they can no longer drive to work the problem will be solved? It’s either raise gas prices to where commuters can’t afford to drive anymore (usually through taxes), add prohibitive taxes to car registrations, force price increases on the cars themselves, or in this case raise tolls to prohibitive levels. Any of those will further kill an already sick economy and devastate working people trying to make ends meet. Not to mention the damage it’d do to pensioners on fixed incomes. Isn’t this the way dictators fund themselves and control their people?
TSM, I see your point, but yet, something drastic is needed to solve pollution and overloaded highways.
A high fee is working in London, last I heard.
That’s a different country, with different history, different people, and different customs
What works elsewhere won’t necessarily work here
“A high fee is working in London, last I heard.”
“What works elsewhere won’t necessarily work here”
What are you talking about?
Lucas Electrics worked there and so does driving on the wrong side of the road with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car! Disarming citizens works there, too!
CSA
Why does the solution have to be a targeted economic nuclear bomb that hurts only the lower half of the economic strata? More taxes, higher fees, higher tolls, artificially rained prices… we’re in a sustained economic disaster already. Why is the solution to make it worse?
Yeah, make life unaffordable for half the population and they’ll stop driving. It’s parasitic; the host suffers greatly but the parasite thrives. In this case the parasite would be the government.
I apologize if there seems to be a tint of anger in my writings… I get sick and tired of the answer to everything being to raise taxes, raise tolls, raise costs. I get tired of hearing “let’s just double tolls”, “lets just tax gasoline to $6/gallon”, “let’s just tax fast cars so nobody will buy them”. Civilizations throughout history have self destructed by overtaxing their populations. Let’s not be one of them. Artificially raising costs to change behaviors does nothing but cause more problems. Let’s get out of this “just raise costs and that’ll fix it” mindset. Altering behaviors by economic punishment doesn’t work. It carries with it a terrible cost. It carries with it seniors who can no longer afford their homes, commuters who can no longer afford to commute, retailers going bankrupt because people no longer have any discretionary income, young couples who can no longer afford homes, housing market with too much unsold inventory and drops in real estate values. Risk increases and interest rates rise. Unemployment climbs. During the Carter years inflation, unemployment, and interest rates were all double digit. I lived through the results. It wasn’t pretty.
Tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend. That isn’t the answer to anything at all.
Damn iphone spell checker…
Yes it was a Hearse…
Quick questions: how do we pay for public services if we don’t raise revenues to do so? Who pays, and how much? When are we going to meet our current obligations and who will pay for it? We could eliminate all US Governemtn programs except DoD, Medicare and Medicaid and still have a shortfall.
Why do we always have to increase revenues?? What happened to the revenues we already have??
Uhhhh, they are spent. Tell me about all the waste. Go ahead! The point is that the gap is so large, that inefficient spending is a minor help at best.
Think of it as governments maxxing out their credit cards and then just keep on spending with NEW credit cards.
If people did that, their kids could end up paying off the debt. In the government’s case the kids and grandkids will be paying off the debt. Up till the Reagan years, the US was the world’s greatest creditor! Now it is the world’s largest debtor.