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Comment by themafia | Hacker News Reader

It's the traffic jam at the toll plaza that I completely fail to understand. It massively slows traffic town, creates hazards, it's uniquely unsafe for the workers, it ruins engine and roadway efficiency, and causes engine breakdown on unseasonably hot days.

I cannot imagine that this is the best way to fund roads.

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New Jersey solved this: just put up signs saying “you’re on a toll road, go check what you owe and pay later”. No toll plaza!

Then when you forget, which you 100% will if you’re not dealing with it frequently, or just reasonably assume they’ll send you a bill—ta-da! First communication they send is a nastygram assessing an extra $50 for every toll you forgot to go beg to pay when you got home.

Ingenious way to screw non-locals, and no toll plazas needed!

That's not really an argument, in europe, automated tolls have existed since 1991 (this was actually the first ever country wide system in the world). [1]

Besides, since about 10 years ago, we also have a lot of automated toll roads where you don't even need to have the Via Verde chip now. You just pass by, it collectes your car plate number and it processes the payment for you. Then it's your responsability to check your inbox for the bill (or to set it up to pay automaticaly).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Verde

Plenty of automated barrier-less toll roads in the U.K. - typically bridges, and of course the London congestion charge zone.

The longest toll road still has (automated) barriers to stop at though - the M6 Toll.

The vast majority of the tolling infrastructure no longer uses plazas. In California and in Texas, the tech exists to prevent you from even noticing. That's not deployed everywhere, especially in areas where they do rate-limiting, like the Bay Bridge, where they need you to slow down and stop when the bridge traffic gets too high, but most areas you wouldn't even notice.

This is also causing problems with people using fake plates and magnetized plates. There's an entire growing industry around it. We're going to have to eventually start requiring some kind of transponder that repeats your plate number for sensors that can't be trivially covered... or you know... just raise the gas tax.

https://youtube.com/shorts/HTVBMPGvZJw

https://youtube.com/shorts/lKXv_bA4lYs

I don't know what toll plaza's you're going through. Here's my typical experience trying to get to a meeting in SFO:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQZ2WkX...

The Bay Bridge Toll Plaza:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/rh9rcJe2nDz5Hnkv7?g_st=ic

You’re photo doesn’t show the metering that happens in the opposite direction.

That's the consequence of 4 freeways all (I-580, I-80, I-880, SH-24) dumping their traffic onto a bridge, and using metering lights to try and keep the bridge itself working.

sounds like you’re just upset about traffic metering, which absolutely does work and is unrelated to tolls.

I dont like privatized highways or HOV, but...people still have toll roads? Georgia and Florida and surrounding states have electronic passes and pay by toll if you dont have that.

I have thrown coins into a bucket in at least 15 years.

"electronic passes"

"pay by toll"

These are still toll roads, just a more modern iteration. Toll road ≠ physical cash

I liked the coin bucket because there was a skill about how an efficient driver could toss the change into it without even stopping.

Aint seen a toll plaza this century. Wth?

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