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Most toll booths that I've seen have something like that. I wouldn't necessarily say it's the minority of people that pay cash. The people paying cash are typically the ones that don't drive that road on a daily basis making a monthly pass a poor investment. So even with these transponders if toll roads become more prevalent drivers will be stopping a lot more often anytime they take a trip outside their normal daily commute.
The toll road that I travel the most on is the 301 bridge that takes you accross the Potomac between MD and VA. The bridge, if you can call it that, has long since been paid for yet the toll not only remains it has actually gone up in past years. Why is it acceptable for tolls to make their way into the general fund but unacceptable for gas taxes to? Actually it doesn't really bother me all that much to have gas taxes paying for non-highway programs. If gas taxes weren't subsidizing these other programs the government would have to raise some other tax to make up the shortfall. At least a gas tax or even a toll is a consumption tax, which, IMO, is far better than a property tax or income tax.
I work in a manufacturing environment (non-union) and many of the employees have been here for 15 years and have no plans or ambition to do anything else. The company offers tuition reimbursement, but I can't think of one of them who is taking any classes. They do act resigned that this is their life, and the only possibility; though they always complain about their job. Instead they go home at night and watch the Celtics or Red Sox.
Back on topic - any of you guys losing big in the market. I think I've just lost the $ for about 5 years of $4 gas since New Years! That and the value of people's homes are probably much bigger concerns to many people.
I always thought it was good for a first-time home buyer when housing prices crash. More home for the $. Also, if you are moving you sell your home for less but the home you are buying is less too. Doesn't it all come out as a wash? The only people who are getting hit hard are the speculators who bought property with the idea to sell within a few years.
I agree completely. A home is something you live in. Whether it's worth $50 thousand or $500 thousand is of little concern to me. I also agree that the overly inflated home prices of the past 6 years had presented an almost insurmountable obstacle to a lot of first time homebuyers.
However there have been other groups hurt by the downturn in the housing market. I know people that have been tapping into their home equity to finance a lifestyle that was above their means. They can no longer do this and now view their home and big mortgage as an albatross. I think the person that owns or had a lot of equity in a large, expensive home that was considering downsizing and moving to a cheaper locale probably also took a hit. Regardless, it's all cyclical and anyone that believed home values could continue to increase at 10+% a year was dreaming.
Well, it is and it isn't. Home prices might be crashing, but often that's accompanied by a tightening up of lending standards, that might make it harder to get approved for a loan. So while a few years back, they'd give any idiot off the street a half-million $ mortgage, today it could very well be much more difficult for a buyer with halfway decent credit to qualify for half that. So, while prices are falling, new obstacles could be cropping up that first-time home buyers have to face.
Also, if the economy is in a recession, there's a good chance that people are losing jobs. For these people, falling house prices are useless...those homes are still as far out of reach as they ever were.
Still, for some buyers, falling house prices are a good thing. Like people with good, steady jobs that are ready to move from renting to home ownership.
buy some $4 a gallon gas. :shades:
The last bust I lived through in the mid-80s resulted in significant population loss up in Anchorage for a couple of years. A visible result was fewer cars on the roads, so cruising around town felt easier.
Anyone notice their commute getting easier because more people are trying to take the bus, carpool, telecommute or bike to avoid using gas?
I don't know if my commute's gotten any easier over the past 2 years but it seems to have not gotten any worse. On the other hand there are trips that I make less frequently that involve driving for miles at a time where there is only one lane going in each direction with almost no place to pass. These trips have definitely gotten worse. I'm guessing because some people that used to drive the normal flow of traffic (10 mph above the posted limit) are now driving exactly at the limit or a little below. On a road like this you can only go as fast as the slowest driver, so it only takes one inconsiderate person with this mentality to dictate the speed of traffic. For these trips I'd have to say that high gas prices have made it more difficult to get to my destination. We need to raise gas taxes, if for no other reason, to expand all roads to include a pokey lane.
That toll is only on the southbound lanes. Maryland lets you in for free, but makes you pay if you want to escape. :P
My commute is only about 3.5 miles each way, so I probably wouldn't notice much change ordinarily. However, there have been a few improvements to the roads which have fixed some problems. For instance, two exit lanes were enlarged. They were made longer, and also doubled up to two lanes, instead of one. That would help get traffic waiting to turn off of the travel lanes, preventing some bottlenecks.
They also re-routed one road, so that it comes out on the main road, aligned with another road across the street. This has helped traffic flow a bit.
But as for carpooling, telecommuting, biking, etc...I doubt if much of that has been going on. Although one day I did my part, inadvertently, to ease congestion. I pulled off at the 7-eleven to get some milk on the way in to work, and my '79 New Yorker refused to start back up, so I just left it there and hoofed it the rest of the way! The security guards at the gate gave me a hard time about it, joking that with all the cars I have, I should've been able to find one that runs!
Uh oh, you just described me exactly. Sorry! :-(
OTOH, I AM trying to save gas, not to mention follow the 55 mph speed limit (I peg my speed to the limit + 2 mph to compensate for speedo inaccuracy and set the cruise). On the one road that I travel very regularly which has a 10-mile stretch exactly as you describe, I sometimes wind up holding up a line of cars, but there are no pull-outs and no passing lane. What am I supposed to do?
I applaud your advocacy for raising some money to put in a "pokey lane". No 2-lane with a solid double yellow in the middle (the one I travel actually has a concrete barricade in the middle, otherwise I am sure I would see lots of people passing me illegally) should have a 10-mile stretch with no passing lanes.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Yeah, you'll need improved roads to handle all the people fleeing from Michigan. 7.5% unemployment is no joke -- that's about half-a-million people out of work. When the bennies run out, those folks will have to go somewhere.
It'll make the Indiana/U of M games real interesting.
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It's still 75 mi each way daily from the NC beach to SE VA. But frankly if fuel headed toward $4.50 or more then I'd have to consider changing jobs even with the Prius at 48 mpg.
Today it costs me $10 per day ( cost of fuel ) to get to work. When I lived in No Jersey and commuted 30 mi into NYC everyday during the 80s and 90s it cost either
4 gal of gas at ~$1 ea ( $4.00 ) + Tunnel/Bridge toll ( $3.00 ) + parking ( $7.00 /day ) = $14.00 per day in 1990 dollars
Train ticket RT ( $7.00 ) + PATH fare RT ( $1.50 ) = $8.50 per day in 1990 dollars
So $10 a day now is not a biggie but a 50% increase to $4.50 a gallon brings the daily bill to $15.00...this being on a 'simplified lifestyle' too.
What, there's no Toyota dealer in Corolla yet? (I've long thought it would be worth the drive to buy a Toyota Corolla from Corolla Toyota.) :P
That reminds me of how thankful I am that I don't deliver pizzas anymore. I remember back in the day, I might run through a full tank of gas in my '68 Dart, '79 Newport, '86 Monte, or '89 Gran Fury on a busy Friday or Saturday nite. But back then, a full tank was about 20 bucks, and I'd be guaranteed to walk out of there with at least $120 in cash. So I'd clear about $100. Plus my hourly wage. Plus my tax writeoff for mileage.
Nowadays, one of those old beasts would probably set me back close to 60 bucks. But I doubt if I'd make much more in tips these days, so I'd be clearing more like 60 bucks. Worse, sometimes the delivery companies get greedy themselves in times like this and try to tack on a delivery charge of $1-2, which the company gets, not the driver. But from the customer's point of view, since they're getting milked for a mandatory $1-2, it makes them more likely to reduce the tip amount or worse, not tip at all.
I think my Intrepid would probably get through one of those busy nights for about $30-35 these days. My uncle's '03 Corolla, which would see about 30 mpg in that type of driving I'm guessing, would probably do it for about $20-25.
Wow, that shows just how much gas prices have gone up...these days it costs about as much to feed a Corolla as it did to run a V-8 Dart, Newport, etc 10 years ago!
One thing that's going to suffer with rising fuel prices, I can guarantee, is my lawn. I cut my grandmother's lawn and my own. I have a 5-gallon jug that I use, and usually that's enough to do my yard and her yard twice with the tractor, plus running the push mower a few times. It's weird that I don't have a problem paying close to $50 to fill up the gas tank of an Intrepid, but I balk at the idea of paying $15 to fill up a jug!
I'm letting part of my yard return to nature, as well as some parts of hers. We live out in a rural area, so you can get away with doing that, without having the county, or some HOA, or nosey neighbors get on your case.
So that's it! I should have known!
It's not the gulf war, or chinese demand, or a shortage of oil that makes it cost $100/bbl. It's greedy people like YOU who burned up all the earth's oil reserves by delivering pizzas in your '79 Newport!
I knew it was the USA's fault somehow.
I guess those guys in OPEC aren't so bad, after all.
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Not sure about where you are but here on the IL Tollway most transactions are paid through a transponder. IIRC 80% of tolls on the IL Tollway are collected via transponders. Not sure if thats 80% of cash paid or 80% of the number of tolls.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Well that depends on how much you owe on your house. If home values dropped enough you may not have much equity to put into a new home. You also have to consider the cost to sell your home too, that will take a sizable chunk out of any equity you have in your home.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
I think he described me too. My daily drive takes me several miles along a street with one lane in each direction and no passing lanes. I have talked about this road several times in the inconsiderate drivers forum. Even though its a semi residential road (homes on one side forest preserve on the other) and I do SL+5 I get people racing up behind me a riding my tail.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
It's still a wash. Let's say you bought a home for $500,000 and put $200,000 down. You owe $300,000. Now let's say you sell to move into an identical home, who's value went up or down identically. You will still owe $300,000 regardless of what home values did. As far as the costs to buy/sell a home since they are typically based on sales price then falling home prices actually benefit you there.
So now we have no money to spend, foreign countries own a newly acquired big chunk of our country, Our auto industry is dying, our home values are falling, and we are being laughed at by everyone in our gov't from the local to federal level as they feel almost none of it.
Other good news. Huckabee who wants 30% sales tax on everything instead of our current income tax system was a distant 3rd place in Michigan yesterday. That means that there is no real threat to the tax free drug trade and illegal immigration and their underground economies of ever paying into the system that they use, as they add 2 million people a year to our population and to the load on our system that they do everything they can to not support. Next summer, with the help of a growing population, we will be told that demand for gas is ever rising and the above mentioned big oil and Middle east will demand $4.50 a gallon.
What can we do about all this?
Sorry I will have to disagree with you there. Lets look at your example. You will most likely owe more or buy a cheaper home. Remember if you buy an identical house for the same price their is still 1.) sales costs (i.e. commissions) and 2.) costs to get the new loan on the new house. So lets say the home value does not change you are only going to get $470K for your new house which means if you owe $300K you only get $170K to put down on the new house. Now since lenders charge fees to get a loan the $300K you are going to borrow will only have say $296K going to the purchase of the house. This means that you will either have to borrow more money, find more money to put down or go for a cheaper home ($466K using these figures).
Needless to say that no matter what moving from one house to another is going to cost you.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
The people that will be hit hardest by a recession are those that fully bought into the smoke and mirrors prosperity of the past 6 years. The people smart enough to realize this was artificial and kept their debt and lifestyle at a sustainable level will be relatively unscathed. It's a cycle that has repeated itself numerous times in our society. What it comes down to is that common sense and discipline are valuable traits. If we do get hit with a significant recession/depression I'm sure the feds will step in. Their intervention might amount to penalizing the people with common sense in order to take care of those without. If that happens what's the message that people will leave with? The message I get is it's best to gamble, if you lose you'll be bailed out by those that didn't gamble.
I live in an area with fairly stable employment so home prices haven't been hit that hard, ... yet. I know people that bought a home for $200,000 in 1999 that was worth $425,000 at the end of 2005. These homes are now selling for around $385,000 and these people are whining about how they've lost $40k in the last 18 months. It's hard to take them seriously. This was all somewhat artificial wealth. However people do seem to spend based upon what they perceive their wealth to be. So I can see how this would impact an economy that is based upon consumption. But I don't see how you can create a situation where people perceive their wealth to be increasing by 10% a year. Sooner or later something's got to give. That's what's happening now, a needed correction.
As a fiscally conservative wuss, I hope you are right and the recession doesn't hit me as hard (not that I want it to hit anyone else either). A house payment + 2 car payments is a situation I will avoid in the future, even though the it is within the budget.
As my commute just went from 20 minutes to 40 minutes and 18 miles to 32 miles each way, I am now faced with moving, getting a more fuel efficient vehicle (which is relatively hard to do giving the Accord has been getting mid-30s), or making some other compromise, and that is with fuel at its current pricing. I don't think I am upside-down in my house, but there is very little equity in there either, so that might not be a good opportunity for me now. That and I like my house.
I will probably look for something with 2 wheels and a motor in the spring, maybe another Ninja 500. Okay, so thats because its fun with fuel efficiency as a justification, but still, 40-50 mpg vs 35, and keeping the miles off the newer vehicle...
Unless you make every road a toll road you will still need to fund roads by a fuel tax or other broadly based tax. When I say every road I mean even the one in front of your house. If you are going to have a fuel tax anyway you may as well raise it a little and eliminate all tolls. There is a slight unfairness in making me pay for a road that I don't use, but I'll be doing that anyway unless I drive every last road in my state.
Well the question was if a majority of people are using them.
There will always be are significant percentage of people who don't have a transponder that is valid for a particular tollway because they are not local or are only an occasional user.
FWIW transponders for most systems can be used on most systems. But remember since there are so many users of the transponders that the time non users spend at a toll booth is reduced,
Unless you make every road a toll road you will still need to fund roads by a fuel tax or other broadly based tax.
No one is arguing that point.
There is a slight unfairness in making me pay for a road that I don't use,
Just because you don't drive the road doesn't mean that you don't benefit from that road being there,
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
That's very true. However that's actually an anti-toll argument.
Collecting gas taxes and collecting tolls both have some overhead involved. It seems wasteful and unecessary to use both methods for highway funding. Since there's no getting around the federal gas tax we might as well use that existing mechanism for additional highway construction/maintenance. And as you pointed out. The people that feel they shouldn't have to pay for a road they don't use need to realize they are still deriving some benefit from that road.
The government is the primary advocate for tolls because it represents an additional source of revenue. The more sources you have the more revenue you can generate. The public seems less outraged by small taxes so if the government needs more money it is easier for them to create an additional small tax than to add to an existing tax.
People who spend based upon perceived wealth like $40K extra equity in their homes are like the guy who buys a lottery ticket and buys a boat and Mercedes before the numbers are drawn in anticipation that he's got the winning ticket.
That's how it should be! If people put 40% down payments on their homes, there wouldn't be any "mortgage meltdown." I put that in quotes because we all know that this manufactured crisis hurts only 2 people:
1. the speculators who now claim to be "homeowners" only because they can't sell the last house they tried to flip.
2. the people who bought adjustable rate mortgages when fixed rates were 4%, because they thought interest rates would keep dropping.
The first group gambled and lost -- get over it. The second group is too stupid to deserve a house -- get out of it.
Anyway, the more realistic example is that a person bought a home for $500,000 and put $20,000 down, so he owes $480,000. But now the home is only worth $400,000. No big deal ..... unless something happens like he gets laid off, gets sick, gets divorced, etc.
Then that deficit means that he has to PAY $80K just to sell his house. Most people in the U.S. have less than $5,000 in the bank, and carry $8,000 in credit card debt. So there's no 80 grand to work with.
So that guy gets foreclosed, maybe goes to bankruptcy court, but, hey, that's life in the big city, right?
UNLESS ..... our friends in gov't decide to "help" this struggling homeowner with OUR money (probably stolen from gas tax revenues). Then, suddenly, we're paying HIS mortgage in addition to OUR mortgages.
That leaves a lot less money for us to buy $4 gas.
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Read about Endangered Species? on the Alternate Route
Oh yeah, I was real greedy, driving around in a 1979 Newport that I paid $250 for. Sorry, but I think the last 1979 Corolla had rusted away around by that time. Not that I would have been able to fit in it, anyway. :P
Keep in mind that 90% of the driving public simply are not as interested or informed about cars the way Edmunds members are.
I think whoever came up with the idea of the tethered gas cap was a genius, though. I've had a lot of GM cars where they put the fuel filler behind the license plate, and you used the cap to prop the license plate open to get to the fuel filler. In those cases, I'd always remember to put the cap back on. But on some other cars, where you just take the cap off and sit it down somewhere, I've made the mistake of forgetting to put it back on. Not often mind you, but it has happened.
I had a 30-mile commute which I reduced to slightly < 4miles. If you don't have a house to sell, it is a no-brainer - to move significantly closer to work. A 64-mile daily drive will certainly cause your depreciation-cost to go way up (all cars are basically worth $1,000 after 10 years and 200K miles; it's just a matter of when a particular depreciates a lot). The difference in fuel between driving 64 miles and 8 miles is much greater than selecting any other vehicle than your mid-30's Accord. Your insurance premium should go down, all else being equal. And your maintenance would go down significantly. Also economically a motorcycle purchase might not be such a great idea to save when you add up the purchase cost, taxes, registration, and insurance for that.
This is purely economic for most people who rent, don't have a spouse working in the other direction, and such.
There's a house right down the street from my factory, For Sale. No more than 100 yards away. I could buy that and live just like people did back in the days of the mills.
Maybe our urban planners you should look back 150 years and figure out how urban areas could work without subways, buses and cars. Maybe our office buildings in central cities should be layed out like this: 1 floor offices, 1 floor shopping, and 2 floors residential?
I lost the cap on my '68 Dart once. It was an original-equipment cap too. Body color, and flush-mounted. Lotsa luck finding another one of those! I ended up buying a cheap chrome one from Trak Auto for about 5 bucks. Oddly though, that cap stayed on the car for several miles. I had filled up at the gas station, then drove to the bank about 2 miles away. Then, on my way back to work from the bank, at a traffic light, a guy pulled up beside me and said he had just seen my cap roll off the back of the car! So it held on for about 3 miles, I guess! I looked all over for it, but couldn't find it.
The manual override in the trunk for the fuel door is a complex hydraulic cylinder looking thing rather than a simple pull cable.
What was the deal with the domestic obsession for putting the filler door and trunk openers in the glove box? I'm mildly surprised they didn't put the hood opener and sunroof controls in there, too.
I dunno what GM's excuse for it was, but it sort of made sense with Chrysler. Back in the day when cars came with two keys, Chrysler used one key for the doors and ignition, and another key for the trunk and glovebox. So I guess the idea was that you could lend the car to someone, or let a valet park it, giving them just the one key, and they wouldn't be able to easily get into the trunk or glovebox.
Now once upon a time, with GM cars, the square head key worked both the doors and ignition, while the round key did the glovebox and trunk, but sometime in the 70's, they made it square head ignition only, round key for trunk and doors and glovebox. I never understood that logic.
One oddity though, is that back in the day, sometimes a glovebox lock was optional. So I wonder if a car was ever equipped with a remote trunk opener, yet no lock on the glovebox? I dunno when glovebox locks became standard, but my '85 Silverado doesn't have one. Yet otherwise it's fairly well equipped for a truck of that era, with power windows/locks, cruise, tilt wheel, etc.
Speaking of Mopar, did you ever notice that many Mopar glovebox doors flip up rather than down? It's one of those strange qualities those older cars had like putting the toothed edge of the ignition key facing up rather than down as on GM cars. From what I remember, Ford cars had a toothed key edge on both sides.