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Comments on Toll Roads
A three man panel is scheduled to review "the continuing debate over private vs. publicly developed toll roads." The session is schedule from 8:30 to 9:30 - first thing Wednesday morning. Do you plan to attend? Any comments you like to offer about this debate?
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Convince me that toll roads can be done right
Posted By: Short Course 2007 at October 16, 2007 4:45:04 PM
The 183A project has embodied for me what can go wrong with toll roads. The grand opening was rushed to grab incentives, with construction still continuing something like 9 months later - but the real problem is that the road did not act like a complement to the original (free) roads. Instead of complementing US 183, the 183A crippled the carrying capacity of 183 at the southern connection with 183A. Where we used to have 2 staight lanes each direction at 45-50 MPH, we instead have a southbound 183 which narrows to a single lane, backing up traffic badly and a northbound which is even worse. Our straight two lanes have been replaced with a bizarre double lane, double direction merge with zero through lanes - for someone to stay on 183 (after exiting the main lanes and traveling 2 exits on the frontage road) they must still stay on their toes and very quickly merge across two lanes of traffic or be forced back onto 183A (zero through lanes) before entering a dangerous zig-zag of paired 90 degree turns. The frontage road vanishes by splitting left, right and back onto 183A main lanes. The really sad part is that simple restriping could have kept southbound 183 at two lanes instead of one (it was this way through construction) - and northbound could have at least one through lane, again with simple restriping. It's not too late to restripe and at least reduce the problems.
