But a tax is not targeted to where the usage occurs. Tolls allowed highways with more usage to get more revenue to save up for the more frequent maintenance.

Yeah nice in theory but the reality is far from this.

In order to implement tolls, you need several components involving middlemen. This includes frontend software, backend, payment processing, transponder management, all the hardware involved, support staff, sometimes toll station staff, among other things.

These toll companies are often owned by foreign companies that are in it for the long haul, offering sweet deals up front then gradually charging more and more with no end in sight, as roads diminish in quality and rest stops fall into disarray.

Toll roads are a scam, a regressive tax on the working class, and downright immoral. We should not limit the mobility of people.

Would American companies treat an average motorist better than foreign companies? Are you insinuating that these good, law-abiding, American companies are COMMUNIST?

I am not insinuating anything.

Road management should be administered by federal and state agencies, including the administration of tolls when they are foolishly utilized. It should not be a for profit venture, it is a mechanism of taxation for public logistics.

It should not be possible to offload management to private orgs outside of very specific subcontracting / purchasing of components.

Instead, often times full road management is given to private orgs. They are not given a robust legal incentive to act in the interests of the road system, and how could they? They are interesting in using the road to maximize their profit, at the loss of everyone needing the road.

What do you mean by “the economics” here? I barely drive but I have a toll transponder, I set it up once and haven’t thought about it since.

Toll collection used to be much worse in terms of collection efficiency (revenue-cost)--perhaps 50% as I understand it. With all the automated toll booths I assume it's much better today.

I don’t even have a toll transponder, OCR these days is good enough to detect your plate number and charge the linked account.

Don't they charge you more if you do pay-by-plate though? I always see signs that have a price with local ez-pass, a higher price with out-of-state ez-pass, and an even higher price for pay-by-plate.

Yes, bill for plate OCR is typically a lot more expensive in addition to having to logon to a site etc.

Ez pass billing is all over the place, each state/authority does whatever it wants.

If you reg a secondary car’s plate to an ezpass account without using the transponder, a lot of states will just think it was a read fail and charge you the regular rate but it depends.

The less honest states (New Jersey, probably others) will charge you a punitive fee (which doubles if you don't pay on time) for not having an EZpass on that vehicle. And then when you call customer support they'll argue with you, until you call on the last day when they finally agree that everything was good and proper.

In Washington it's just 25 cents higher (if you're registered -- $2 higher if you're not registered) than without a pass. Not a huge deal.

25 cents for me. I can get a sticker for $5 sticker that negates that (no transponder I think for Seattle’s first 520 bridge, maybe for carpools?). Oh, supposedly the sticker is a transponder, so I can save 25 cents if I buy a $5 sticker. Even though I don't use the bridge that often, it makes sense to buy.

Ussally if you don't have an account they charge you more. But at least for the systems in my area they'll charge your account wether you have your toll transponder or not (because they OCR your plate and charge the linked account)