Quote:
Originally Posted by michael_d40
I think the tolls should stay on.
1.) The province cant afford to add this debt on the already excessive debt
2.) The toll booths act as a traffic calming measure
and
3.) Why should the ENTIRE province pay for this bridge? It's a user pay system now and should be kept that way. In fact the tolls should be 75cents 1 dollar like in Halifax. The highway between Fredericton/Moncton should go back to being tolls as well. Again user pays. Not the entire province.
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The Harbour Bridge authority has a debt in or around 22 Million. I can almost guarantee you the revenue made from the tolls don't even pay the wages for the employees of the Authority itself. Why does the Authority exist?
The Tolls are 75 cents already for cars who have any sort of advertisement on them (IE Local business van, auto-75 cents). I wouldn't believe that raising the crossing-cost of something is going to alleviate any of the debt problems at all. Unless you're driving from outside of the city and are already on the highway, it's not difficult to take the Reversing Falls bridge, which costs nothing to cross.
See, there's a difference between Fred/Moncton tolls and the Harbour Bridge toll. That highway is the only significant link between the two. The bridges in Halifax save a thirty minute drive through Bedford. If i'm driving from East to West, there's nothing stopping me from taking the Somerset exit, driving along Hilyard, Chesley, and across the Reversing Falls Bridge. As someone who lives North, I have never had to use the Harbour Bridge, and having to pay to cross a bridge I don't need to cross gives me
even less reason to use it in the first place.
If there are going to be tolls, they should be on the highway between Saint John and the Valley. We can talk about traffic calming there all we want.