A Better Way

I guess it's been a long time, and there's so many things I could write about that have happened in the past 10 months. There's been so much going on, but I guess that's it. Many of the things happening are things that impact my job, or rather the thought of losing it, and so my thoughts are often occupied with things I don't really want to write about.

This week, however, I've had a thoroughly wonderful vacation trip, and so I wanted to describe it. However, on the way up to Wisconsin, and now on the way back, the thing that is currently pressed on my mind goes back to my job. As a turnpike toll collector in Ohio, I constantly live with the threat that the turnpike will be leased or sold. If this happens, there are a number of scenarios that could play out, none of which could be interpreted as good to the employees there.

I think of myself as a Republican and I voted for John Kasich. In general, I support his efforts to find ways to bring Ohio's budget back under control, and to plug any shortfalls. However, there are right ways and wrong ways to do things, and to simply give away one of the state's most valuable assets for the paltry sum of 2.5 billion dollars net is about as shortsighted as one can get.

Notice, I'm not even making the argument here, as some have, that the turnpike is NOT a state asset. Others have argued that case persuavely. I'll just concede the point and move on. There is a much better way to deal with the turnpike that would put it in state hands, and make a whole lot more money. It's called High Speed Tolls.

I discovered this while driving around Chicago last week, and I think it's a most marvelous thing. I had seen a High Speed Toll plaza in Pennsylvania near the Ohio border the last time I drove through there, and while I thought it was kind of cool, I didn't think much more than that. But the Illinois Tollway has taken that concept to a whole new level. With High Speed Tolls, drivers with transponders simply drive through the plaza area, and their transponders are automatically read without them having to even slow down from highway speed. People without transponders have to pull off down a ramp to pay in cash and then reenter the roadway. I don't know exactly how many of these on-road plazas there are, but there's a lot of them.

I believe the Ohio Turnpike could be retrofitted to accomodate high speed tolling, placing plazas along the roadway every 20-40 miles. Some of the current toll plazas could be eliminated completely, and others would be reduced to partial plazas. Now that the turnpike EZ Pass system has been in place for nearly two years, people are aware of it, and have gotten used to it, and even many more would apply for a transponder if this change were made, thus streamlining the system even more.

What about the loss of jobs that would result? Not to worry, because this system should also be instituted on other interstates in Ohio, particularly I71 and I75. About 15-20 years ago, the federal government was advocating that states build more toll roads. Some states did. Ohio did not. I never thought that it was practical to convert existing interstates into toll roads. But with high speed tolling, most of the obstacles disappear.

If the governor would institute such a plan, instead of settling for the shortsighted plan he has, Ohio would be much better off.