With the prospect of toll-road legislation coming in the next session of the Missouri General Assembly, an advocate for pay-as-you-drive highways was making a strong pitch for building more of them to an Oklahoma House subcommittee.
That might sound like preaching to the choir since our good neighbors to the southwest already account for 13 percent of the toll roads in the nation, but the truth is that highways on which motorists must pay a toll to travel aren’t popular.
Consider that in 2001, 56 percent of Oklahomans responding to a statewide Consumer Logic/Tulsa World poll wanted to scrap the state’s 600-mile turnpike system.
While we haven’t changed our mind that forcing drivers to pay tolls is making them pay again and again for something for which they’ve already paid, Assistant U.S. Secretary of Transportation Tyler Duvall did make an excellent point: Attempts to reduce fuel consumption in the future will cut into the revenues required for maintaining and building highways.
Missourians shouldn’t be too surprised if legislators ask them for a constitutional change that would permit toll roads on specific highways, such as Interstate 44 and Interstate 70, and bridges.
Toll roads won’t be an easy sell. Missourians have rejected them twice before — in 1970 and 1992. Eventually, whether next year or the year after, voters will be asked the toll road question again. Supporters are hoping a third time will prove the charm. We doubt it. Missourians, like their 2001 counterparts in Oklahoma, don’t like paying for something over and over.
Opinion
In Our View: Paying twice
- Opinion
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Our View: Are school loans next 'debt bomb'?
The late American middle class struggled for decades to keep pace with an American dream slipping from its grasp.
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Our View: A better way of limit terms
A Missouri House committee on Tuesday endorsed a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow lawmakers to serve 16 years in the state Legislature, either the House or the Senate.
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Your View: Is it our fault?
When did coveting things and money take over character? What happened?
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Your View: No way to run a school
All throughout the state of Missouri, you’ll hear much discussion about teacher tenure and the indefinite contracts that go along with that. Most — if not nearly all — jobs in the private and public sectors have no such career protection.
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Your View: Prime suspects
If it’s too cool in the house, you can turn up the heat if you think you can afford it.
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Our View: Worldwide concern
There is growing concern worldwide that Israel might launch an attack on Iranian nuclear plants.
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Other Views: FAA deal up in air five years
The Federal Aviation Administration bill was delayed 23 times, but the agency finally has a law giving it $63 billion and full operating authority for the next four years.
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Don Ray, columnist: Obama's pipeline excuse an election-year cop-out
On Jan. 18, President Barack Obama announced he was rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline project — a project that had its beginnings some 40 months ago (September 2008).
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James Whitford, guest columnist: Broken people or broken system?
Are the people broken or is the system broken? If you walk into Watered Gardens, our rescue mission, it may seem the people are broken. But it’s a rescue mission. It just feels that way. And sometimes, it just looks that way.
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Our View: Meaningless in Missouri
Missourians have an opinion about who should be the Republican candidate to run against Barack Obama in November. Too bad it won’t matter.
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