The case study from Orange County, California demonstrates that paid toll roads don't solve traffic problems.
"What did the public transportation agencies -- like Caltrans and the Orange County Transportation Authority -- have to lose? If the toll road diverted traffic from the public freeways, that could delay the need to widen the freeways, and if California Private Transportation Co. wasn't making a profit on the toll road, why would anyone want to build a competing toll road? ... The traffic jams got so bad, in fact, that Caltrans decided to widen the public -- meaning the no-toll -- freeway. That's when the public agencies realized that they were the rubes who just fell off the turnip truck, because of the poison pill provision that prohibited competiton."
Thanks to Transport Policy Listserv
Read the full story: When freeways become no longer free
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City of Rosemead
Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS)
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
City of Cambridge
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello