What does everyone think about the Louisville bridge tolls?

[HubertGummer]

I think it's an excessive amount...and I hate tolls.

Actaeon nailed it.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

I am against all tolls.
There should not be hiding taxes that way.
There should be 1 Federal tax, 1 State, and 1 local/county tax.
And they shouldn't be taken out of paychecks automatically. People should have to pay them each month, that way they can see what they are REALLY paying.

Tolls, fees, licenses, etc are just ways to hide how much you're paying.

I don't like tolls, either. However, in a libertarian utopia, as I understand it, government wouldn't have anything to do with road- or bridge-building. Those would be privately contracted and the builders would want to be compensated - and make a profit, most likely. I can't see much difference between the two schemes, especially at a chokepoint like the Ohio River crossing. That said, we travel to Kentucky maybe once or twice a year - and generally rent a car to do it.

 

[littletommy]

Hey, just a decade ago Kentucky couldn't even get their **** together enough to PAINT the Kennedy bridge, and now we have two new bridges and an interstate system through Louisville that people can actually travel at highway speeds on! I hate the tolls, hate the entire concept of them, but it sure is nice to be able to get across the river and through that crappy city in less than 30 minutes! We actually have river link stickers on all our vehicles, but we don't make a lot of trips across the bridge, and when we do, it's usually via the 2nd street or sherman minton. It is a lot easier to take 65 south, though, when we're heading to Tennessee or Florida.

On another note, a guy I know lives just north of the Lee Hamilton expressway, and his wife works in Kentucky on US42.....the east end bridge knocks around 35 minutes off her commute, each way, they are quite happy to pay the tolls, and I would guess probably come out ahead in fuel savings.

 

[Cameramonkey]

My beef is if they ever make ALL the bridges toll. That is wrong IMHO and I could see a lawsuit. Today, if I dont want to pay a toll, I can take an alternate route. So for instance if I go to NWI I can choose an alternate route other than the toll road that isnt totally awful. But if all the bridges down there go toll, what alternative do we have? We dont. At least not without going HOURS out of the way. Its one thing to introduce a toll for a preferred high speed route. Its entirely different to make EVERY (reasonable) option a toll. Toll bridges across an obstruction are different than tolls on a faster road with other options IMO.

I got my transponder, but work paid for it. I havent been across the bridges for pleasure except once in the last 10 years. So they got to pay for it.

 

[VERT]

New bridge will cut 20 miles off the trip to see my sister. That is worth a couple bucks. But we will avoid going to Louisville unless it is to see family.

 

[bwframe]

Doesn't this sort of thing make one question the road/bridge building industry and their interaction with govt? Competition, unions, kickbacks, etc.etc.etc.

 

[87iroc]

I am a fan of pay for use 'taxes'...so I don't mind it. If I lived in the area and had to commute everyday it would suck. No different than my inlaws paying a large fee monthly to park in downtown Indy. Part of the choices they've made for where they live and work.

I plan to get a transponder so I can use it in Chicago too when we go there.

 

[terrehautian]

Really curious to see how the plate camera, "mail you a bill" scheme works out. What happens to out of staters who don't realize what they've gotten and pitch it as junk mail?

I wonder what rental car places are going to charge rental customers?

 

[87iroc]

I wonder what rental car places are going to charge rental customers?

I had a friend that went to Italy to get married. He ran a redlight or got a speeding ticket or something over there...via a camera system. About a year later he got a ginormous bill from Italy saying 'if you don't pay it, you could be arrested upon return' or something like that. I think it was several hundred dollars.

They tracked him down via plate number and who had it rented.

I suspect it'll be the same here.

 

[VERT]

I had a friend that went to Italy to get married. He ran a redlight or got a speeding ticket or something over there...via a camera system. About a year later he got a ginormous bill from Italy saying 'if you don't pay it, you could be arrested upon return' or something like that. I think it was several hundred dollars.

They tracked him down via plate number and who had it rented.

I suspect it'll be the same here.

I mistakenly missed a toll in Chicago in a rental car. I went online the next day and paid the toll. Couple months later I caught a charge for a couple hundred dollars from the rental car company. I then called the credit card company and reported a fraudulent charge. Since I paid the toll and rented the car with the same card I was immediately refunded. If it wasn't for the credit card company intervening the rental car place was going to argue. Pretty much a money grabbing racket.

 

[Bapak2ja]

I wonder what rental car places are going to charge rental customers?

I had a friend that went to Italy to get married. He ran a redlight or got a speeding ticket or something over there...via a camera system. About a year later he got a ginormous bill from Italy saying 'if you don't pay it, you could be arrested upon return' or something like that. I think it was several hundred dollars.

They tracked him down via plate number and who had it rented.

I suspect it'll be the same here.

Tolls are a part of life all over the world. Fees are designed to cover the costs of construction, maintenance, and operation of the road/bridge. Louisville has been a difficult spot on the road for many years. A huge amount was spent to improve the travel system. Somebody has to pay for it. User pay just makes sense.

I just rented a vehicle in Ft. Myers, FL. I used the car to drive through the Everglades National Park. On I-75 I passed several electronic toll locations, and had no idea they were functioning. I thought they were toll booths that were not yet in service due to local construction. When I discussed this with the rental agency I discovered that if I purchased a Sun Pass package for about $60 they would pay the tolls and send us a bill for the tolls. If I did not purchase the package, the state would still send them the toll bills. The agency would pay them and charge me a $25 service fee for each toll they handled for me. Our rough count, based on memory only, was that at least three such toll sites were passed. We opted to add the toll package to our rental agreement to avoid the $25 charge for every electronic toll charge. My wife thinks the $25 fee is charged by the state, but I think it was charged by the car rental agency. Either way, it is a clear money-making decision.

Read the fine print and ask the right questions when you rent a car. Those electronic tolls are a hidden danger.

 

[BroodXI]

construction coming up on 3rd st in louisville, so 2nd st bridge is going to be a nightmare. Also heard rumor Sherman Minton Bridge is slated to go down for more repairs... that of course will force traffic across the two toll bridges. Kinda have a feeling that they won't collect much from out of state drivers, forcing them to collect more from the locals. If you notice, they have plate cameras long before the bridges.

 

[dsol]

What pisses me off is the 40 trip discount, what if you only work four day weeks or take a day or two off or a few sick days? Then your bill damn near doubles unless you waste gas and time making an extra trip or two.

What pisses me off even more is the fact that the congresswoman from Louisville area a while ago, Anne Northrup had funding setup for bridge construction but the *******s in the east end kept fighting it with lawsuits and court filings for every outrageous thing they could think of to stop it. Then they got some damn house and piece of land declared historic thinking that would stop things. They dug a tunnel under the damn thing which made it cost even more...

RiverFields is one of the organizations and I swear to this day, if I ever meet some of those people, I will kick them square in the nuts just out of principle. I lived through the Sherman Minton shutdown (live in Jeffersonville and work at the airport), went into work before 0600 and tried to leave early and each trip still took over an hour at very best. Usually 1-1/2 hour each way. I used to amuse myself calling and leaving obscene and disgusting messages (full of every curse word I ever learned in the AF and as an aircraft mechanic) on their voice mail system about once a week.

 

[jamil]

What pisses me off is the 40 trip discount, what if you only work four day weeks or take a day or two off or a few sick days? Then your bill damn near doubles unless you waste gas and time making an extra trip or two.

What pisses me off even more is the fact that the congresswoman from Louisville area a while ago, Anne Northrup had funding setup for bridge construction but the *******s in the east end kept fighting it with lawsuits and court filings for every outrageous thing they could think of to stop it. Then they got some damn house and piece of land declared historic thinking that would stop things. They dug a tunnel under the damn thing which made it cost even more...

RiverFields is one of the organizations and I swear to this day, if I ever meet some of those people, I will kick them square in the nuts just out of principle. I lived through the Sherman Minton shutdown (live in Jeffersonville and work at the airport), went into work before 0600 and tried to leave early and each trip still took over an hour at very best. Usually 1-1/2 hour each way. I used to amuse myself calling and leaving obscene and disgusting messages (full of every curse word I ever learned in the AF and as an aircraft mechanic) on their voice mail system about once a week.

Yeah, I remember some of that. I wonder if they were connected with the 86-64 nutters who sought to tear out I-64 from Sherman Minton to I-65, because they wanted a greenway all along the river.

Jeez, the louisville blue bloods and their irrational, out of touch priorities. And then there's their worship of old buildings. Now I like history and old stuff, but at some point, it's time to tear it down and build something new. They'll get some house in a working class neighborhood declared historic and then owners are forced to sell because they can't afford the required standards. Then there was all the Whiskey Row nonsense.

 

[avboiler11]

Ah yes, RiverFields and their $400M+ east end tunnel...

 

[jamil]

Ah yes, RiverFields and their $400M+ east end tunnel...

They're probably quite proud of themselves.

 

[NKBJ]

For some weird reason people put up with tolls and don't throw the rascals out of office. Why I don't know.
Personally I will avoid paying tolls whenever and where ever possibly. The GPS navigation settings can be set to avoid tolls and I have used the feature repeatedly, especially in the more corrupted parts of the US on the eastern seaboard.

 

[Cameramonkey]

For some weird reason people put up with tolls and don't throw the rascals out of office. Why I don't know.
Personally I will avoid paying tolls whenever and where ever possibly. The GPS navigation settings can be set to avoid tolls and I have used the feature repeatedly, especially in the more corrupted parts of the US on the eastern seaboard.

I use that feature too. And once a year I forget to kill it when going to Ontario. I dont realize it until it routes me from Indy northeast to NY and around the east end of Lake Erie when I really need Detroit and the Ambassador bridge. (toll bridge) It goes from a 5 hour trip to something crazy like 18 hours.

 

[jamil]

Who do we throw out of office for this? Either you fix it or you don't. If you fix it, you either do it righter and more expensiver, or you do it wronger or cheaper. You either pay for it with tax money or you toll it.

So who should bear the most responsibility for paying for it? Probably the people who use it most. Tolls kinda are good for that.

My biggest problem with it is the cost of the toll, which was largely driven by the added cost of tunneling under the "historic " house. If it weren't for that, the tolls might have been more reasonable.

 

[indiucky]

My biggest problem with it is the cost of the toll, which was largely driven by the added cost of tunneling under the "historic " house. If it weren't for that, the tolls might have been more reasonable.

My wife didn't grow up here and she doesn't understand the disdain we locals display when talking about "the east end"......When the "historic house" issue came up I just looked at her and said "That's why...There all snobs...."