I was unaware of that, if that is in fact set in stone, I have nothing but lamentation for the State of Ohio...

 

Ohio has to be one of the most non-functional, illogical (corrupt) regions in the Union.  Maybe the most considering all of its resources and history.  Mississippi probably still takes the crown, though.

Here was my comment on the Enquirer article: "Northern Kentucky state lawmakers continue to collectively oppose tolling because they believe residents who commute each day to Ohio would bear most of the burden of paying for the bridge. During morning rush hour, 63 percent to 65 percent of local drivers who cross the Brent Spence start in Kentucky, according to the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments." Exactly a good reason FOR tolls. The rest of us in the region and those all around the country subsidize frequent users of the bridge - KY residents who work in Ohio. The Tea Party is simply arguing for Kentuckians who use the bridge more often shouldn't have to pay the true costs of their commutes, and should rather be spread around to the rest of the country. Freight movement isn't affected by tolls since it would amount to very little cost to freight companies/drivers and many would be re-routed to lesser used I-275 loop.

 

I think that if the bridge were appropriately tolled, the commuter traffic would be reduced as folks find another route to work, increase the use of carpools, or stop travelling as much altogether. The freight and business traffic, though, would more than make up for the cost of the toll by increased productivity.

 

I think that there's a perception that tolls will do nothing but raise revenue, while causing a little bit more delay at the toll booth. In order to sell this idea, it is necessary to show that tolls will result in better traffic flow due to the reduction in the volume of traffic. Here's my idea:

 

1. Construct the toll plaza at the top of the hill, near Kyles Lane, because it would not be good to build it anywhere on the cut-in-the-hill due to steep grades, and there is no room on the Ohio side. The toll plaza of course would have to have more lanes than the highway.

2. Eliminate the Covington ramps and compensate by constructing better access to the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge on the Ohio side.

3. Set the toll price appropriately, adjusting it for time of day and day of week. Ideally, traffic should always move at the speed limit. If it is consistently backing up, the toll isn't high enough. During low traffic periods there shouldn't be any toll at all. (Some commuters will adjust their schedules to avoid the toll, which is exactly what we want to happen.)

 

Really, there should be LOTS of places where the interstates are tolled. The legislation that caused them to be free was a technical mistake, in my humble opinion.

 

^ I basically agree with you. Though I would say tolls should be put in for the current bridge. Then in several years, if a new bridge is still needed, there will be some money in the pot to start off.

 

Modern toll booths do not need to slow people down, since regular commuters can get EZ Pass transmitters which collect their toll as they ride through express toll lanes at regular speed.

^ What about all he out of state drivers that don't have EZ pass? Mail them a bill? Mail is not getting any cheaper either.

You'd still have cash pay lanes.... These are fairly common in other states... Ohio's turnpike is really out of date with this type of tech. Florida, NY, and Cali have this.

They can always put a hot lane on the new BS. I have no idea why those lanes are not already in the planning for all urban interstates.

There aren't going to be toll booths.  It will just take a photo of your license plate and send you a bill at the end of the month.  Same technology as the red light cameras. 

^ What about all he out of state drivers that don't have EZ pass? Mail them a bill? Mail is not getting any cheaper either.

 

There would be traditional toll booths for them beside the express lanes. Our local infrastructure should be for our benefit, first and foremost. Their time wasted subsidizes the safety and maintenance of our bridge (which they still get to use).

There aren't going to be toll booths.  It will just take a photo of your license plate and send you a bill at the end of the month.  Same technology as the red light cameras. 

For real? That seems like it would indeed be a problem with out of state plates. Are you joking?

Why would out-of-state plates be an issue?  Tollways in Texas also use cameras, and it's being implemented in Los Angeles too if it hasn't already.  The cameras are in fact the primary method of handling out-of-state residents without transponders. 

I would just think it would be a computer vision nightmare, with all the possible plates (constantly changing) as well as frames and things which alter their appearance a bit. Maybe they have a person whose job it is to look at all the plate pictures and ascertain the state, but that would require a lot of labor for a bridge which sees over a hundred thousand cars per day.

 

Maybe it's just not as tough a problem as I imagine it to be, with the rudimentary knowledge I have of computer vision.

^ I basically agree with you. Though I would say tolls should be put in for the current bridge.

 

I say tolls should be collected for the current bridge. I would only eliminate the Covington ramps and compensate by better access to the Clay Wade Bailey bridge on the Ohio side. Then, drivers travelling to or from Covington could take the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge. This solves two problems:

 

1. It allows the toll plaza to be built some distance from the existing bridge, in a better location at the top of the hill, where there is room and steep grades are not as much of an issue.

2. It improves traffic flow by eliminating the small number of drivers who have to change lanes on the existing bridge to get to or from the Covington ramps. 

^^^This is CLEARLY the most logical solution.  Toll the current BSB and redesign the access ramps to the CWB.  Done.

I suggested that years ago on this thread.  But it's not gong to happen because Covington's meager riverfront "downtown" and the fast food district will die off.  Covington's earnings tax is the highest in the region at 2.5% so they are dependent upon these jobs. 

Covington just lowered their earnings tax to 2.45%

 

http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20121204/NEWS0103/312040138/

Nibble, nibble.

The way to sell the idea to Covington is to demonstrate an improvement compared to the existing situation. It is possible that travel time from Covington to, say, Kenwood will be erduced even with the BSB ramps removed if it is also accompanied by better traffic flow on I-75.

 

 

In the comment section on this article, some guy linked to a NKY Tea Party page which opposes user fees (tolls) for the bridge: http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20121204/BIZ/312040140/Governors-uniting-bridge

 

"It is estimated 63-65 percent of the daily commuters who use the bridge are from Northern Kentucky; therefore a disproportionate burden of the tolls would fall on the residents of Kentucky who use the bridge."

 

Clearly, the TP is against hand-outs unless they are the recipients. When they have to pay for something in direct proportion to the amount they use it, the payment is "disproportionate".

 

Kasich, Beshear uniting for Brent Spence

2:31 AM, Dec 5, 2012

Written by: Jason Williams

 

The Ohio and Kentucky governors are scheduled to publicly sign an agreement next week intended to demonstrate their shared determination to replace the Brent Spence Bridge.

 

Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear plan to officially agree during a joint appearance in Covington on Dec. 12 on a study that will map out how to pay for the $2.5 billion project, The Enquirer has learned.

 

The $4 million study – conducted by a leading toll-project firm – is expected to conclude that tolls will need to be the centerpiece of a finance plan. Kasich and Beshear both have said the bridge probably will not get built without tolls.

 

Read more

Major announcement today. LaHood is in town.

Stumbled across this the other night and thought it was relevant to this discussion.

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/jonas_eliasson_how_to_solve_traffic_jams.html

Completely incompetent live blog of the B$B meeting with LaHood, Kasich, and Beshear:

 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20121212/biz01/121212002

 

At least I think it is still going on, it hasn't been updated for about half an hour.

Tolls are coming to the bridge.

Everyone knew/knows that but the NKY Tea Party.

So construction will start in 2014 and take 2-3 years to build.

 

http://www.wcpo.com/dpp/news/tolls-may-be-used-to-fund-brent-spence-bridge-project

Everyone knew/knows that but the NKY Tea Party.

 

Gotta love that ideological consistency. They're all for libertarian principles, except when they aren't.

"Block our Bridge", or whatever it's called, running ads all over talk radio and their goons are making appearances.  Their main argument seems to be that not doing their plan will take 5 more years and will cost $500 million more because "every month we wait costs $8 million more".  No explanation for that math. 

"Block our Bridge", or whatever it's called, running ads all over talk radio and their goons are making appearances.  Their main argument seems to be that not doing their plan will take 5 more years and will cost $500 million more because "every month we wait costs $8 million more".  No explanation for that math. 

 

Financing and inflation cause a project to get more expensive the longer you wait to build it, but who knows where the $8 million number comes from, it seems too high.  I really wish someone would propose to toll the current interstate bridges, charge double rates during rush hour, and maybe slow the speed limit to 35 and enforce it.  I’d imagine traffic would let up quite a bit.

 

Although the only concern I have with tolls is that we may be underestimating the cheapness of Cincinnatians.  I’d bet a lot of people will be more willing to sit in traffic and clog local roads for hours than pay $3, even though the extra time/gas ends up being worth way more.

 

Inflation is not a real cost because hardly funding has been allocated so far, and neither is financing because no bonds have been sold.  Certainly, if it is going to be a toll bridge, repayment of bonds is dependent on that revenue and if collection of tolls is delayed after the bonds have been sold due to construction problems then yes the interest costs increase, at least that's how household budgets work.  At this scale there might be a different set of rules. 

 

No word yet on what happens to tolls after the construction bonds are paid off circa 2050.  No doubt some toll revenue will still be collected for maintenance, but does the company simply get to pocket whatever they can get?  That's the real fear here.  OR, if the company goes bankrupt after driving plummets when gas hits $10/gallon, what happens to the bridge?  Who would buy the bridge if it is foreclosed on?

 

 

PhaseBuch page

"We Are Against Brent Spence Tolls"

Most arguments are, "We already paid gas taxes" & "DANGER DANGER"

https://www.facebook.com/pages/We-Are-Against-Brent-Spence-Tolls/558471657502113

We Are Against Brent Spence Tolls shared a link.

Wednesday

Why the rush for the bridge? Why do they want to add another tax on us?

 

First I have heard any of the "double tax" anti-toll crowd actually question the dogmatic urgent need for the bridge. I hope they successfully slow the B$B down as much as they have the streetcar.

 

Anyone else wondering why COAST is mum on this issue?

Despite their name, COAST has never been an anti-tax, anti-spending group. They're an anti-city, pro-sprawl group.

Heck, COA T has told streetcar supporters to put an anti B$B initiative on the ballot & they'd support it.

Of course, right now they are busy carrying on about how awful the semi-privatization of parking is.

*^@$% screwballs.....

A psychological review of those clowns would be hilarious.

But I believe this FB thing has more to do with NKY Tease.

But I believe this FB thing has more to do with NKY Tease.

Yeah, I was just lumping all the pseudo-fiscal-hawks together.

How can this bridge cost 2.5 billion and only go one mile yet the toll pike in northern Ohio goes 200+ miles and costs the same?

For the last time people there aren't going to be toll booths.  They're going to use red light cameras to photograph license plates. 

If there are tolls, I want trolls to collect the tolls.

How can this bridge cost 2.5 billion and only go one mile yet the toll pike in northern Ohio goes 200+ miles and costs the same?

 

Um, because the former is a long-span double-deck bridge over a major river in a dense urban area, while the latter is a turnpike through mostly flat cornfields?

What's interesting is in the same way people can only picture old-timey streetcars even though the new streetcars are much different, everyone seems to only be picturing traditional toll plazas. 

 

>2.5 billion and only go one mile

 

The whole project area is about 5 miles, from Kyles Lane to Western Hills Viaduct. 

Maybe if I knew of a precedent for that, I would be less skeptical. I know all about EZ-Pass, but not this camera stuff, which I raised the possibility that it could be difficult with out-of-state plates. The Enquirer said something to back this suspicion up:

 

Toll booths would not be used on the Brent Spence. New bridges being built in Louisville and Southern Indiana – a project viewed as a model for the Brent Spence – will use all-electronic tolling. It relies on overhead sensors to read in-vehicle transponders and does not require a break in speed.

 

Some traditional tolling authorities are exploring eliminating toll-basket mechanisms and lift gates. By the time the Brent Spence project is done, there might not be a toll booth left in the nation; manufacturing of toll-basket mechanisms has ceased.

 

But the tolling industry is struggling with how to catch drivers who don’t pay, particularly out-of-area violators. There are no laws forcing drivers to purchase toll transponders, and no official nationwide agreement exists between departments of motor vehicles and the nation’s 110 tolling agencies to identify offenders. Tracking down violators and mailing multiple invoices ultimately could cost the states and tolling authorities more than the original toll.

 

I know enough about toll tech to know that the middle paragraph there is rather silly, especially regarding the lift gates which hardly exist at all anymore. But I don't know of any proof of concept for quick and easy charging based on license plates. "Tracking down violators and mailing multiple invoices ultimately could cost the states and tolling authorities more than the original toll" -- this seems likely to be a problem with the camera charging.

Tolling has always struggled with out-of-state gate crashers.  My dad blew through the Chicago Skyway booths when I was a kid, it was impressive. 

 

So with traditional plazas people get away without paying and with the new method some people will slip through.  Fact is the overwhelming majority of vehicles are from Kentucky and Ohio and so will pay.  Further, they will avoid paying anyone to work at toll booths because there won't be any.  Hard to imagine that billing costs by mail will exceed the cost of staffing a toll plaza 24 hours per day, although some knuckleheads will inevitably send cash in the mail. 

If I understand the camera system you describe, people will "slip through" by design, just their license plate will be captured on camera. But the logistics of the camera recognizing every possible plate, regardless of what sort of decoration might be on or around the plate, and discerning which state's license plate database to access in order to get address information for whom to send a bill to, and then physically mailing those bills...it seems technologically impossible without a lot of human labor, including database searches, possibly form completion, and envelope stuffing, which may very well incur more labor costs than operating booths.

 

What might work is a system like they have in, I think, Austria, where you have to get a sticker at a convenience store before crossing the bridge. (In Austria the stickers are actually for driving on a stretch of highway. Similar to the county park stickers we have.) Have signs up making this clear miles beforehand. Then have cameras scan windshields for the stickers. If there's no sticker, then the process begins of figuring out who to send a bill in the mail to. But in this case that process only occurs for people who are disobeying the system, greatly reducing the number of license plates needing to be checked. But something like this seems cumbersome, too. Though it would be flexible, and mostly burdensome for people who are one-time/rare users of the bridge. The appeal is that stickers can be as temporary or permanent as necessary, whereas with a transponder system you would not be giving someone on a family vacation from FL to MI a transponder.

Make it an annual bill and add it to plate renewal.  Done. 

I can't imagine trying to inform people in the region about a camera that will send you a bill later, let alone informing the people travelling from out of the region that they will get a $2 toll charge in the mail that they then have to mail back. This seems like a terrible idea to me. Traditional toll booths will be much easier for people to grasp.

 

People still write in to the Enquirer and talk about how dangerous the streetcars will be because you board in the middle of the street, failing to realize that technology/best practices have changed since the 1940s. Putting in a simple camera toll system would be a nightmare. I could easily see them reverting back to tolls after implementing the cameras because of the PR disaster ensuing. Is there any city in the country that actually uses these cameras?

Yeah, the red light cameas are all over the place.

^Yeah, and COAST has successfully gotten rid of plenty of these systems in Ohio. Also, they only take pictures a couple times a day. They aren't taking thousands of pictures and then processing them daily. And you really think Joe from Covington will put away money every day so that he can remember to save the money for an annual bridge crossing fee? People can grasp paying $2/day, but if you work across the river from where you live, you would have a yearly $500 bill to pay (assuming about 2-3 dollars per day round trip) just in time for Christmas shopping. That would cause more of an outrage than the daily tolls. At least most people can understand that.

Also, they only take pictures a couple times a day. They aren't taking thousands of pictures and then processing them daily.

 

Exaaaaactly.

 

And you really think Joe from Covington will put away money every day so that he can remember to save the money for an annual bridge crossing fee? People can grasp paying $2/day, but if you work across the river from where you live, you would have a yearly $500 bill to pay (assuming about 2-3 dollars per day round trip) just in time for Christmas shopping. That would cause more of an outrage than the daily tolls. At least most people can understand that.

 

It could still work with a prepaid subscription like EZ-Pass. Apply for the program, get charged every time your account goes below X, get discounted use of the bridge.

 

Still, I don't think the camera thing works. No one has convinced me otherwise. So far as I can tell, my sticker idea is the only somewhat feasible one for avoiding toll booths (which could be manned by machines like parking lot exits, avoiding labor costs). Cameras still catch violators, but that's not thousands of vehicles per day.

They must be avoiding fee's to plates and licenses for future projects. Im not sure about how additional sales tax can happen in Ky since every county has the same sales tax.

You guys sound like the COAST troglodytes.  "It won't work here." "I don't understand it, ergo it's worthless." "Just because it works in London and Texas doesn't mean anything." "Forget facts, it just doesn't feel right so it's bad." "It will be massively difficult to implement." "Hurr durr go USA!"  Give me a break! 

I'm going to send an email to someone working on the project and hopefully they can clarify how this is going to work, because I've definitely heard them say that this is the plan. 

 

Again, there will be computers recognizing text on licesnse plates -- Facebook has pretty damn good facial recognition software and text is a piece of cake compared to that.  Plus, digital cameras have gotten much better, meaning they don't have to do the flash anymore like with the early red light cameras.

 

My guess is that there will be an array of cameras placed over a 1,000+ ft. distance that will ensure no plate gets missed in bumper-to-bumper traffic.  The program might need two matches confirmed by two different cameras cameras in order to ensure a correct reading of the plate.  Multiple appearances of the same plate obviously will be cancelled out in billing. 

 

 

The pictures of plates will likely be read by the software, automatically matched to a license plate database in Excel, then the offenders list will be mail merged into Word. Then printed on letterhead, folded in a paper folding machine, stuffed in an envelope and sent out. Although monotonous work, they likely only need to employ a few people to really handle a task that is largely carried out by computers.