Talk:Toll road/Archive I
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Acheron vs. Styx (mythology)
Acheron vs. Styx (mythology) .... I see references to both vis a vis where Charon plied his trade. Can someone provide evidence one way or the other (Wikipedia itself seems in conflict). dml 03:08, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
Private highway
I am considering writing an article about private highways (e.g. the Dulles Greenway). The Cato Institute has a lot of info about this subject. Anyone interested in collaborating? There is a fascinating article at [1] called Highway Aggravation: The Case For Privatizing The Highways, by Peter Samuel. The argument can be summed up here:
- In Russia communism's failure was epitomized by constant shortages in stores. Empty shelves in supermarkets and department stores and customers in line, wasting hours each week, became the face of the system's failure, as well as a source of huge personal frustration, even rage. Communism failed because prices were not flexible to match supply and demand; because stores were bureaucracies, not businesses; and because revenues went into a central treasury and did not fuel increased capacity and improved service. We in supposedly capitalistic America suffer communism--an unpriced service provided by an unresponsive monopolistic bureaucracy--on most of our highways. Our manifestation of shortage, our equivalent of Russian lines at stores, is daily highway backups. There is no price on rush-hour travel to clear the market. There is no revenue stream directly from road users to road managers to provide incentives either to manage existing capacity to maximum consumer advantage or to adjust capacity to demand.
Rad Racer | Talk 04:58, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
"World-famous" Smithfield Hams
First.. does the fact that the certain hams are "world-famous" really have any sort of impact on this article and toll roads?
Also... since 1) the toll bridge was built in 1928, 2) the shunpiking started in 1955, and 3) the tolls ended in 1975 (when a bridge replacement was started)... doesn't his seem like a stretch of cause and effect? I'd like to see evidence that it just wasn't a simple case of bonds being retired, or something similar. A gap of twenty years between shunpiking and the end of a toll seems like a big stretch.
I'd recommend that this whole entire section be removed from the article.
- Mark Mathu 8/15/05
- The reference to Smithfield Hams was merely for identification purposes, since we are urged to consider those outside the US when writing article content. Anyway, the long-hated toll bridge which had been privately-owned since it had been built was purchased by the State of Virginia with public money. However, instead of removal or reduction of tolls, as users anticipated, the tolls were increased, with no improvement of the bridge itself. This is the "Cause and effect". Retirement of bonds was not involved. The federal requirement to remove tolls from the nearby Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel as it was improved with federal funds a second and a perception of equity fueled the politics to remove the tolls in 1975. And, the shunpiking had no apparent impact upon tolls. The shunpiking by Joe Luter is just an interesting local history item.
- - Mark Fisher in Virginia 8/15/05 Vaoverland 12:02, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
U-Turns on Oklahoma Turnpikes
I'm not 100% sure, but pretty close, that on the Oklahoma toll roads (at least the Turner and Will Rogers Turnpikes) it is not possible to enter a rest area and U-turn to go back the other way and avoid a toll. I've driven both of these and if I remember right, access is blocked to get onto the other lanes. Even on the free interstates in Missouri, this is not possible. The only way I know is if there is a place for emergency vehicles to do this, but anyone else would be breaking the law. I won't change the article, but if anyone else knows this to be true, please change it. The toll charge sounds inflated. It was $3.00 for each segment. Rt66lt 02:14, September 2, 2005 (UTC)
U-Turns on Oklahoma Turnpikes
The article is misleading. You can drive, for example, east along I-44 (the Turner Turnpike) from Oklahoma City to a couple of median rest stops / oasis areas, and turn around without paying a toll. Only, you'll wind up back at the I-35 / John Kilpatrick interchange in OKC, or rather going to back to your point of beginning and getting nowhere except burning gasoline. You cannot exit the turnpike at the sidegates with out incurring a toll fee, unless you violate the law and run them, and the sidegates are either manned or have video enforcement. Approximately halfway to Tulsa is a center gate where every vehicle encounters a toll, either by electronic collection (PIKEPASS) or cash payment. So yes, you can in some places drive the turnpike for free, but you'll only be making a long U-turn. As for the current toll fees, just go to http://www.pikepass.com. Anon. Feb. 6, 2006.
U-Turns on Turnpikes
- I'm pretty sure U-Turns are illegal on most freeways in the US, whether or not they are toll. On some freeways, like the Garden State Parkway (toll), service areas in the median make U-Turns possible to be done without going through any Emergency Vehicles Only sign. In fact, signs for Northbound and Southbound are often adjecent. I think most roads have emergency U-Turn breaks in the median all along, but like you said, this is usually illegal. What I don't understand is how making a U-Turn can reduce the toll. On the New Jersey Turnpike you end up paying the maximum possible if you U-Turn. --Chris 23:44, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Italian toll roads
In Italy all the autostrade (the Italian for Autobahn, or Highways) are toll roads. They are all networked in the fact that if you enter in Naples and exit in Venice you will pay only at the exit, even tought you have changed several streets. They are named AXX, where XX is a number from 1 to 30. i.e. A1 connects Milan to Naples; and they might have nicknames ("Autostrada del Sole" = "Sun Highway" for the A1). The numbers don't follow a methodology. 61% of the Autostrade are handled by the "Autostrade per l'Italia S.p.A" society, and its subsidizeds. The network of highways covers most of Italy: North and Center Italy are well covered, South and Sicily are scarsely covered, Sardinia is not covered.
Other toll roads in Italy are the urban areas of Venice and Florence where tourist buses must pay a fee to enter the city. Autostrade are pretty expensive too. For example the tipical Milan-Naples route of around 700 Km costs approximately 40 €.
Can you add this info to the article? Thanks. Andrea G.
- Done! You do realize that anyone can edit any (well mostly any) article, right? --Chris 23:38, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
- Yes I know, I'm a contributor of the Italian Wikipedia, but my English is not very good, I mean, it's not encyclopedic ;) So I just wanted someone to clean up eventual grammar and sintactic errors. Thanks, Andrea G.
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- I've added some information on the payment methods and a link to my TELEPASS article and slightly expanded upon the numbering schematics - there are actually two blocks, one from 1 to 33 (33 is under construction), and 50 to 91 for the beltways. Also, I've inserted a brief explanation that privately owned Italian motorway carriers must maintain their networks at cost and using the tolls they collect. Markus Stamm 22:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
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Moved from Turnpike
Anon comments. — Omegatron 21:30, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
This needs to have content about the political stance and about the road structures
-What about the history of the turnpikes?
Alphabetical order
I changed the order of the Tollroads in... part to be alphabetical. I made an exception with regard to the US/UK as this the English Wikipedia.
It would be good to organize this under a separate subheading, I think, but I have not the nerve to write a general text for this now, sadly. Only trouble that i see with the alphabetical order is the reference to singapore in Norway. --Madcynic 13:27, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Toll roads in Croatia
I have added an entry on Croatian toll-roads based on the information contained on http://www.hac.hr/modules.php?r=o_nama and the documents listed there. EurowikiJ 16:33, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Early toll roads
The section reads:
- ==Early toll roads==
- Early references include the (mythical) Greek ferryman Charon charging a toll to ferry (dead) people across the river Acheron. Aristotle and Pliny refer to tolls in Arabia and other parts of Asia. In India, before the 4th century BC the Arthasastra notes the use of tolls. Germanic tribes charged tolls to travellers across mountain passes. Tolls were used in the Holy Roman Empire in the 14th century and 15th century.
- A good example in the 14th century would be Castle Loevestein in the Netherlands, which was built at a strategic point where 2 rivers met, and charged tolls to boats sailing the river.
IMO this reflects a very simplistic analysis. I'm not qualified to do a sophisticated one, but i bet that the above falls short of this slightly less simplistic one:
- "Toll" comes from Latin and Greek terms related to custom-houses and taxation and presumably thus applies to situations involving sovereignty, such as the Robber barons. "Fare" comes from the same roots as "ferry", and in contrast to "toll", its modern uses have to do with getting a place on a vehicle (land, sea, or air). Fares and tolls, to the extent they are distinguished, are
- (fare) a fairly simple phenomenon of a tradesman, who carries you across a distance in a wagon, or across a bay, strait, or river in a boat, and eithers receives his fee, which provides for his subsistence and the cost of maintaining the vehicle, or chalks it up to the cost of doing business when the passenger is tough enough to insist on traveling free;
- (toll) is a more complex and less stable situation where someone with enough military force to seize everything that comes by shows some appreciation for the fact that doing so is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, and extracts a tolerable toll from the commerce that he would end if he lacked restraint.
- It's not clear from Google searches whether Charon collected tolls or fares (or, honestly, whether the Greeks made the distinction):
- For
- Charon toll OR fare
- the "fare" hits run something like 70% of the first few pages, but
- Charon toll
- gets about 59K while
- Charon fare
- gets about 53K.
- For
- Charon is certainly early evidence of fares, but not necessarily of tolls, and Hercules's being carried without fee, simply because he glared powerfully, suggests the tradesman giving up his fare, not the warrior extracting a toll.
- In any case, he is only evidence of the Greeks' knowledge of practices that might be forerunners of toll roads, and not himself a forerunner.
- Real forerunners to cite are
- well-established highwaymen and
- robber barons.
- Presumably modern toll roads began from the recognition that Autobahn-like highways would be cost-effective for their societies, that the additional expense of features aiding collection of tolls was relatively small, and that they could be both affordable to users and self financing. At least in some cases, they've been built with the plan of the tolls lasting only until they pay off the bonds issued to finance construction.
Someone can say that sort of thing much better than i, and can make a much better section than we have by doing so.
--Jerzy•t 02:46, 14 & 01:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC) [to correct format as to numbering]
United Kingdom
I have removed the following, as I do not believe it to be correct: responsibility rested on three groups, the Crown (the King's Highways), the aristocracy owning the land over which the roads ran and the monasteries.
- The great land-owning monasteries were the most active in road and also bridge maintenance. The Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII greatly reduced the quality of the roads.
Medieval Law seems to be largely silent on the subject. The Laws of Edward the Confessor placed four great roads under the King's peace and the rest under the peace of the Earl, probably meaning that each county should be reponsible for repairs, but the medieval county court in practice probably did little. Peterkingiron 22:52, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Ferrys
Perhaps we should note that some Ferrys charge a fee, that could be likened to a toll Alexander101010 15:20, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Pictures
I created a gallery of pictures at the bottom of the article. Much cleaner. --Woohookitty(meow) 06:35, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Odd paragraph in United States > History section
The following paragraph, located in the United States history section (second to last paragraph), does not match the tone of the rest of the article.
- Occasionally it is mooted that some of the Interstate highways, for example, those in the sparsely-populated states just east of the Rocky Mountains, should have been turnpikes. The reason is to have those cross-country trucking firms that use them pay for them. But there is no movement to do this, especially since trucking companies already pay a fuel tax in each state they drive through.
This paragraph needs to be rewritten or possibly removed entirely. --Geekers 18:25, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Japan
I read the following in the article.
"Japan has the most expensive toll system in the world, with toll rates averaging approximately US$1.00 per mile (US$0.63 per kilometer)."
"What's this in yen?" I wondered. Indeed, why quote the figure in USD at all? That makes about as much sense as giving the English Channel tunnel toll in South African Rand. Surely the original figure would have been in yen per kilometre not USD per mile. Conversion from kilometres to miles introduces inaccuracy. Conversion from yen to USD introduces inaccuracy. The latter is made even worse by the fact that exchange rates vary ... but, of course, toll rates vary too. So I went digging about for Japanese tollway fees and this is what I found.
"Under the scheme of the toll pooling system, toll rates were determined in the redemption principle, in which total toll revenues during a pre-fixed period must cover the whole cost of construction, maintenance, interest repayment, and others. The toll rates as of 2001 were as follows:
"Terminal charge:150 yen per single use
"Light car and motorcycle:19.68 yen/km
"Ordinary passenger car:24.60 yen/km
"Small and medium-sized truck:29.52 yen/km
"Large-sized truck:40.59 yen/km
"Special large-sized full trailer:67.65 yen/km
"Toll fees for ordinary passengers car are 24.6 yen/km plus 150 yen as a terminal charge in Japan ..."
- Personal automobile usehtml version
- Transport Infrastructure Development in Japan and Koreahtml version
- Infrastructure Database for Asia and the Pacific (Japan)
Jimp 06:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
