Quote:Since then the state has said they are going to double the tolls (that were paid for 20 years ago) and raise the gas tax.
Jonny,
Here's an interview with the Transportation Secretary last year.
The situation:
Quote:GWEN IFILL: The president came out after the Minneapolis bridge collapse and said, "Secretary Mary Peters will be my point person on this and will fix this problem." And then he came out a few days later and said, "Taxes will not go up." A $188 billion infrastructure problem, how do you begin?
Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!! You need to

or
It goes on to mention solutions like "congestion pricing" for users, it seems a pretty heady fee.
Quote:GWEN IFILL: No, but I mean -- I guess I mean is for the part that they asked for where they would essentially charge commuters coming into Manhattan eight dollars a head. Did you approve that part of it?
MARY PETERS: What we approved was the project that they would pursue, congestion relief, pricing techniques to pursue congestion relief in New York City and that they would achieve the results that they had proposed in their initial proposal to us.
You may be aware that the state legislature created a committee that is tasked with looking at various ways to relieve congestion in the city. What we have said is, you have to meet the result. You have to use congestion pricing. You have to meet the result, in terms of a substantial decrease in the congestion in your city, but we're not specific in terms of how they do that.
GWEN IFILL: Do you think that's a good idea, or is it a tax on commuters?
...
GWEN IFILL: Is the distinction between this and a gas tax, say, a distinction between a mandatory tax and an optional tax?
MARY PETERS: Well, somewhat that is the case, certainly, because people can choose to go into an area where there's congestion pricing or not. But I think the real user fee benefit of this is people are paying where they're using the system and they're seeing direct benefits from where they're using the system.
And that's where I think the real win for the American public is. When you or I pay our gas taxes today, we don't really know where that money is going to go or whether or not it's going to benefit us right directly in our community or not.
Boston is not mentioned but what you posted sounds like this type of user fee. The interview talks about earmarks and spending properly, at the end she mentions this money being spent more directly on the area, however, being spent properly is... what was that tunnel in Boston called?