Tolls are ridiculous! May 31, 2009
Posted by agstick in Travel.Tags: GW Bridge, New Jersey, New York, tolls
trackback
First I want to thank Afflatus for adding me to the blog. I hope my posts enrich the already dope material on it. I’m on am iPod right now so I apologize up front for any typos and what not.
Anyway, having just got back from a semester in Madrid two weeks ago I went to visit some of my boys down at school in DC. Ever since I started driving my family has had the EZ-Pass so I haven’t payed much attention to toll prices…until today. While stuck in traffic at the GW bridge (connecting New Jersey and New York City) I decided road signs would be a terrific way to pass the time. One of these forms of reading material informed me that it currently costs $8 to cross the Hudson River. To put that in perspective, a bus ticket from NYC to DC costs $20. For $12 more dollars than the bridge toll one can travel hundreds of miles down the east coast. Though I am not one New Jersey commuters should be livid if they are not already.
Infinite Symposium 
Below is something interesting i found on the topic on Wikipedia. However, it’s a bit confusing considering I cross the bridge a lot to visit my grandparents and have never seen another toll lane for carpools or such.
Opening date October 24, 1931 (upper level)
August 29, 1962 (lower level)
Toll Cars $8.00 ($8 peak / $6 off-peak with E-ZPass)
$2 when carpooling w/ 3 people or more w/ EZ-Pass (cars only)
(eastbound only)
haha, I like the post man. I bet many commuters are livid, especially in these economic times (though really, us Americans shouldn’t complain. Arguably, we live better than everyone else.)
I wonder what that 8 dollars goes to? I assume this was for crossing the George Washington Bridge. That bridge was obviously very expensive to build. I wonder when it was built, how much it cost, and if the tolls have paid off the total cost of the bridge (initial costs and current maintenance). Assuming the tolls do cover the total costs of the bridge, what does the money go to now? Is it good/bad?
Answers to these questions will tell me whether or not people should be livid over this $8 toll. 8 dollars does seem exorbitant. But hey, the sad fact is inflation is ever-increasing thanks to monetary policy by the Fed (a larger issue to save for another day). And prices increase proportionally to inflation.
Ah, death and taxes, my friend, death and taxes.