Tolling SOV's

First, let’s make it clear that I am against paying to use the roads.

We paid for these roads with gas money and other taxes; we should be allowed to use them.

Worse, I would hate to see a world in which these gas tax built roads paid for by nearly all of us would be now given to those with the money to pay for access.

But having said that, there is something to be said for getting some vehicles off of the road.

So I think that it would be alright to put a toll on those non-commercial vehicles that have only one person in them—during peak hours. If you have more than one person, no charge. If you are driving during non-peak hours, no charge. No charge for commercial vehicles. Only the single occupant vehicles driving at peak hours would be charged.

Frankly, this is something that I would consider as a last resort measure. I am convinced that there are many things that we can do to relieve congestion but if we have to, we can toll SOV’s. It would work.

Nineteen out of twenty cars on the road at peak hours has only one person. If everyone doubled up, we would take nearly half of the cars off the road. Now that is congestion busting.