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It Won't Be Free In Your Lifetime. Or Your Children's Lifetime. Or THEIR Children's...
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When they build toll roads, they tell you that after the initial bonds are paid off, no more tolls. They lie. That NEVER happens. I did a whole radio campaign about that 20 years ago, protesting that the Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike were supposed to have been toll-free by the early '60s and instead the legislature quietly refinanced and hoped that the public had forgotten the promises (and they did). Flash forward to 2014, in Orange County, where the San Joaquin Hills toll road has failed to attract enough riders -- blame high tolls and the fact that the 405 and 5 are nearby, parallel, and unless you're going from the northern part of the county all the way to the southern tip -- basically, mostly San Diego-bound traffic -- you're likely to be closer to your destination on the free roads. All of that is to say that they've approved refinancing, and that means that the tolls will stay in effect until 2050, at least. It was supposed to be free by 2036, then they refinanced and it was 2042, and now 2050. It will never be free. They lied. (Los Angeles Times)
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