Toll roads: What do they do with the money?
BY PETER GORRIE
My latest experience with toll roads was a January trip to Florida, where I drove the Veterans Expressway/Suncoast Parkway for about 45 minutes north from Tampa.
There are four “toll plazas” along the 70-kilometre route: The total cost is $3.75 (U.S.). Each plaza adds a few minutes to the journey; the main inconvenience is making sure you have enough dollars and quarters to get through them all.
People grumble about the tolls on this and the Sunshine State’s other “pay-as-you-go” highways. But they hand over their cash — or swipe their Sun Passes — and move along.
Most U.S. states have similar systems, likewise accepted as a bothersome but acceptable fact of life. It’s all so smooth that advocates of more tolls on GTA highways cite the American experience as supporting evidence: if the payments are commonplace even in the tax-resisting Land of the Free, why are we so backward as to abhor them here?