Society Should Ban Tolls (or at least toll booths)

Every year in this country, we needlessly waste millions upon millions of hours of our citizens’ time sitting in backups that are caused by toll booths, and it needs to stop. The fundamental idea behind toll booths seems innocuous enough – it’s a way to direct a tax at those people who are going to use the road/bridge/tunnel to be built the most. Why should I be taxed for construction in outer Uzbekistan that I’ll never use? Well, this is both a selfish and shallow (not to mention blatantly incorrect) argument. The fact is that we all benefit from a good, toll-free system of roads – while I might never go through outer Uzbekistan, I might want to purchase goods and/or services that originate from (or from beyond) outer Uzbekistan, in which case I have a vested interest in them traveling from there to here as quickly and as cheaply as possible. I might have friends who come to visit me who have to travel through outer Uzbekistan, and I would rather they not get backed up for several hours because of a toll. And even though I don’t intend to go through outer Uzbekistan, I might go near it, in which case the road that I’m on may have less traffic as a result of that road I didn’t want to pay for that goes through outer Uzbekistan. And who knows, I might even get detoured and have to take that road, at which point I’m going to be very glad I don’t have to wait at a toll booth. All of this not withstanding - even if this road never affects me one bit, I should still, as a conscientious citizen, want what’s best for this society and not just for me.

Now, all that being said, part (most?) of the problem here is that people don’t think that way. So toll booths have become an easy out for legislators – they know a road needs to be built, and any time taxes are raised citizens jump down their throats, particularly if it’s for something they don’t think directly benefits them, so the government instead decides to fund the road with tolls. While I suppose this is still better than the road not being built at all, it’s not by any means a reasonable long-term solution. This ends up being far worse than it need be for the people who have to not only pay for these tolls with their money, but also with their time. This system has staying power for two reasons – first of all there is probably billions of dollars in construction that we would have to pay off today if we suddenly abolished toll booths. Secondly, I would bet that many of those tolls that have paid off their construction costs are still around because they make money for the government without raising taxes. The structure is already in place, and people have accepted it – what’s so bad about leaving it up? Think about it - when was the last time you remember a toll booth being taken down? Anyway, the solution of just getting rid of toll booths tomorrow is not really viable, unfortunately. So… I have come up with another solution. Mandatory EZpasses (or some standardized version of the EZpass) for everyone who ever goes through a toll booth.

First of all, this should be happening anyway – anyone who sits through more than 0 toll booth lines per year and doesn’t get an EZpass is either ridiculously lazy, or is an idiot. It does not take a great amount of intelligence to realize that you having an EZpass is both clearly better for you and clearly better for everyone else too. This solution allows the government to still get its money from tolls while letting the roads flow smoothly. It feels like we’re sort of moving in that direction, but not quickly enough. Sure this would require some initial money to do – you’d have to publicize the fact well on your major roads that have tolls, and then have a place (maybe rest stops?) where people could pick one up and put money on it, and/or link it to a credit card. The infrastructure to do this certainly exists enough – all of the lanes around here take EZpass already, not to mention the fact that a significant percentage of drivers, at least here on the east coast, already have EZpasses. But anyway, whatever initial down payment is necessary to make this work must be well worth it – almost anything that will save our citizens billions of hours of their free time over the coming years is worth it.