Flashbacks:
The RNGC Caddyshackpocalypse
Bollards!
We enjoy a good "rap session" about traffic flow and capacity utilization as much as the next hepcat web logger, but this bit under "revenue options" caught our eye: Along with considering changes to taxes to pay for the area's transportation needs, one item open for discussion is converting Fairfax County Parkway to a toll road. Those fancy new "Rt. 286" signs aren't going to pay for themselves, you know!
But there's no need to start filling a second sock of quarters to supplement the one you're already using for the Toll Road just yet -- the transition would require authorization from the General Assembly and considerable expense to add tolling equipment, loud bells that ring when the aforementioned equipment doesn't read your Smart Tag correctly, etc., etc. For now, it's just one idea on a long list of ideas. But once an idea's been put on the table, it's out there. As our BFFs at Reston2020 put it:
Simply put, Restonians would be taxed no matter what direction they head to leave Reston: East and West on the Dulles Toll Road and North and South on the Fairfax County Parkway Toll Road. So in addition to the diversion of traffic from the Dulles Toll Road due to huge toll hikes, Restonians and those coming to Reston would divert from the Fairfax County Parkway Toll Road to, yes, Reston Parkway. Having just seen a presentation by FCDOT that forecast four minute delays (actually, 241 seconds at Sunrise Valley Drive at the "peak of the peak" period) on Reston Parkway in 2030 due to local development alone--no consideration of tolling the Parkway, I don't even want to think about what tolls on the Fairfax County Parkway Toll Road will add to local congestion, pollution, and diminished quality of life. (I won't even go into the absurdity of their calculation for the average household.)On the plus side, they could just hang those coin-collection baskets from the impressive steel megalith already hanging over the parkway's intersection with Sunrise Valley Road. We're saving money already!
The funding solution seems simple to me. If Libya can charge foreign al Qeada members a special commuter toll to travel through their county to visit the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, then why can't Faifax County charge a similar special communter toll that would apply on to right wing anti-government anti-tax Christian Taliban residents of Loudoun County that travel through Fairfax County on their way to their taxpayer-funded government jobs?
ReplyDeleteHow is it fair that a Fairfax County resident and a born-again troglodyte from Loudoun County both pay the same tolls to ride through Fairfax County? That's not right. The special communter toll should be high enough to dissuade any of Loudoun County's cave dwellers from coming through here. Of course, that means they will have to find jobs in Loudoun County, which is fine because there are plenty of McDonalds, convenience gas stations and lawn care service companies to employee the advanced degees that live there. As a matter of fact, there's even a Five Below store that could employee the thousands of Loudoun residents that have Associate Degrees in the Globalwarminggate from Liberty University.
MDD, don't quit your day job -- you've got a long way to go before you can make a living as a comedy writer. Try reworking your 4:05 post, and maybe you can make the leap from "painfully stupid" to "tedious and unfunny".
ReplyDeleteGo back to your cave --- let us alone.
DeleteThese people are crooks!
ReplyDeleteRestonian is right about the hoops FC will have to jump through to toll the FC Pkwy, but it's not as big a hurdle as one might think.
ReplyDeleteThe state is even more desperate than the County to find sources of funds for transportation, but the cowards in Richmond of both parties won't raise taxes--gas, sales, income, etc, to accomplish that end. As far as they're willing to go so far is proposing the tolling of I-95 in southern Virginia (where most of the traffic is interstate, not Virginians) to cover maintenance. It will gladly let counties take on the transportation burden if they so choose, including tolling state roads.
It will probably take more time to buy those loud bells that ring than getting the authorization from Richmond.
We need to stop FC's consideration of this idea now, because if the notion of tolling the FC Parkway gains any traction locally, it will ultimately succeed.
Toll the park-less parkway and Leesburg Pike (which was long ago a tooled turnpike; hence its name) -- make those who use them pay.
DeleteKeep your sticky hands off my few remaining dollars!
[MDD, don't quit your day job -- you've got a long way to go before you can make a living as a comedy writer. Try reworking your 4:05 post, and maybe you can make the leap from "painfully stupid" to "tedious and unfunny".]
ReplyDeleteThree Loudoun County right wing gay supporters of Eugene Delgaudio walk into a drag queen bar in Sterling where Eugene is performing that night...
I'll have to quite my day time job so as to find time to finish the punch line.
Here, here (or is it hear, hear?) Regardless, you rock!
DeleteThis county is all about spending money and not saving one penny. I remember the days when they would send the surplus inserts on the tax bills. What happened to all that money?
ReplyDelete