Slashdot Mirror
Golden Gate Bridge To Eliminate Tollbooths
Hugh Pickens writes writes "The San Francisco Chronicle reports that tollbooths and toll collectors, a fixture at the Golden Gate Bridge since it opened in 1937, will be eliminated starting in 2012 as the bridge moves to an all-electronic system, cutting 34 jobs and saving $19.2 million over the first eight years. The bridge will move to a toll collection strategy that combines the existing FasTrak system with one that photographs the license plates of cars going through the toll plaza and mails a bill to the registered owners. Other structures and bridges have successfully gone to all-electronic tolls, including the Sydney Harbor Bridge in Australia and the Leeville Bridge in Louisiana, but not everyone is happy with the change. 'This is a world-famous bridge, and you need a human face,' says Philip Hynes. 'You need people in those toll booths to greet people.'"
I'd much rather cruise through tolls without having to stop, and I really have no desire to see these human toll booth operators.
No you don't.
You need to eliminate the 5-minute backup at the toll booth, and thereby save yourself ~2000 hours over a lifetime. You don't need the human face, just as you don't need an operator asking, "Number please?" on the telephone.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
So, $19.2 million, divided by 8 years, divided by 34 people equals...
The toll-collectors get paid $70K per year?
That cost probably includes their medical insurance, the employer's portion of SS and other taxes, vacation time, etc.
And how about all the people who don't update their registration when they move? Rental cars?
And what do you do if the bill isn't paid? Suspend the registration? Cali can't do that to out of state plates or plates from Canada/Mexico.
I wonder if the added bureaucracy and paperwork for collections is going to nullify the gains they make by not collecting at the bridge.
I have to return some videotapes...
You misunderstand the reason for toll booths on the golden gate bridge. It's about reducing demand.
By having a toll on the bridge, a certain percentage of the population is going to decide that it's not worth it to cross the bridge, and will plan their trip using an alternate route. This reduces the number of cars crossing and reduces congestion. By implementing a toll, you help insure that there is at least one non-congested (or relatively quick) path by car into the city, so that those who need to get there in a hurry can. If you need to get into the city 15 to 20 minutes faster, the toll is worth it.
With the toll, the bridge is useful to some people (or all people some of the time). Without the toll, the bridge becomes just as congested as any other road, because people choosing between the bridge and the alternative will favor the bridge until congestion makes them indifferent between the two.
And extending the same idea, everyone benefits from the existence of the Internet, therefore people who don't have access to it should also pay a share of your ISP bill, right? Not everyone benefits from the road system equally. People who drive more benefit more personally and also cause more damage to the roads and they should pay more for the maintenance. The gas tax that we have now is one way to do it but its imperfect. The most fair way to finance roads is to pay by the mile traveled with the weight of the vehicle factored in, which is pretty much what the tolls do. The only problem with tolls is the practicality, the delays they cause etc but it seems like technology can fix that.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Tracking your every move, inside our coast-to-coast prison.
Your papers, please!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
No what would happen if your suggestion was honestly considered by politicians is this. They would eliminate toll roads, and add a new tax on all of the citizen incomes to cover the roads than they are now. However, with even more money available than before, the roads would be maintained even less than they are now for some odd reason. And, over time the money would get mismanaged and re-appropriated to their own private projects, completely unrelated to the road system, and funnel that money to their best buddies for favors, positions, perks, etc. Then, they would decry that the roads have no funding and would reinstate toll roads to solve it but in the process fail to remove the road tax itself. As a result, you now get double taxed for more poorly maintained roads, and the politicians in the meantime have three or four homes in several vacation states and ownership in various golf courses, oil companies and sports teams. Congratulations on solving the problem buddy.
Whilst reading TFA (I know, it's embarrassing, but I still do it) I noted the bridge "operates with a $89M deficit" ... um, how the hell does it manage THAT? The bridge itself must be long since paid for, and maintenance can't be all THAT high -- surely they don't do a total resurfacing every year? So how much of the deficit is a direct cost of running the toll system itself? Or is it just more of the vaunted California gov't economy's ability to spend at a rate 3x its means?
Also:
"A toll-taker's base pay starts at $48,672 a year and tops out at $54,080."
Holy shit, where do WE sign up to make that kind of money for sitting in a booth?? (Yeah, I know that's barely getting by in San Francisco, but still...) Plus benefits and retirement, no doubt.
BTW, we already do get taxed evenly, based on usage -- that's what the gasoline tax does. You're taxed in direct proportion to miles driven and weight on the road surface (which translates into wear and tear) because that's the reality of a given driving distance and a given vehicle's weight-to-MPG ratio. Yeah, it gets harsh if you're forced to commute long distances, but I've yet to see a fairer system.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
And extending the same idea, everyone benefits from the existence of the Internet, therefore people who don't have access to it should also pay a share of your ISP bill, right?
No, but everyone should pay to get internet (and road) access to everyone. If we can count on everyone having internet access we can scrap older less efficient ways to do things. This benefits everyone.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Not everyone grows up to be an astronaut.
Not everyone wants to.
There is nothing soul crushing about doing the job to which are best suited.
We are currently overcompensating some segments of our society because the wealthy have (temporarily) built a ring around certain jobs and then are passing them on to their children. It won't hold. There just is no value to paying a CEO 100 million dollars when the similar CEO in china or india is doing just as good a job for 1 million dollars a year.
Overcompensating them makes people envy them even tho they would be unhappy in those jobs.
There are lots of people of low to average IQ who are happy with a relatively mindless job surrounded by pleasant work buddies.
But you are right- those jobs can be automated. (and are being automated). The end result will not be that those people suddenly become smarter, talented, and capable of doing jobs that require high intelligence or talent.
So what happens to them when their jobs are automated away and there are no other jobs to go to?
They can vote or swing a club or shoot a gun perfectly well. They'll get unhappy when they have nothing to do- no money to spend- and folks act like it's their fault.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
or a rental car?
The rental car companies will deal with this the same way that they deal with parking tickets and red light tickets. Forward the bill/ticket to the person who had rented the vehicle on that particular day.
After adding a massive handling charge.