You Cannot Make These Comments Up

My title isn’t completely apt. What I mean is that I wouldn’t be able to make up comments like the ones I read recently in The Seattle Times. Readers commented on an article describing a plan to build high occupancy toll lanes on Interstate 405. The lanes would be free for vehicles carrying three or more people, while cars with one or two occupants would pay a fee to use them. At last count the story had 169 comments. I skimmed through them, partly to gauge public reaction, but mostly because the way people express themselves in an online forum can be educational, clever, thought provoking, and at times LOL funny.

I didn’t keep an exact count, but most people who commented were opposed to the plan. That’s not surprising given the popular belief that taxes and fees in Washington are already too high, failure (so far) of carpools and mass transit to solve the area’s congestion problems, the underused existing HOT lanes on SR 167, opposition to social engineering, and a general mistrust of ivory-tower politicians.

People said all of that and more in a variety of ways. Below are my favorites. Typos have been corrected. To save space some of the comments have been abridged. In all cases, I think the writer’s point has been preserved.

• So let me get this straight. They cut down the number of lanes available in some areas and raise the occupancy number for HOV vehicles creating more congestion on the freeway. They will then charge you money to get out of the congestion that they helped create?
• We need solutions, not more lanes!
• What a scam. They raise the gas taxes so they can build new lanes and charge us not only to build them but also to use them. We pay twice more for the same thing.
• Geezz…is Olympia running out of ways in trying to get our money on state projects, that they now have to try and nab us on federal (interstate highway) projects?
• Non-monopoly government services like libraries, pools, parks, and licensing can’t pull this on us, their customers. Our dollars walk and go to B and N, gyms, private parks, and contract stations. There needs to be a massive smack to the head of the Olympia elites. Prioritize our existing tax dollars to your core responsibilities, which include job-supporting infrastructure.
• Hah, people from California posting in WA. Why not look at your own troubled budget?
• When, oh when, will legislators start trying to do something FOR the taxpayers rather than something TO the taxpayers?
• I want to pay $1000 per month for my own lane, so I can have no speed limits when I drive up and down the 405 between 520 to NE 8th where I can shop at the Bravern, I want to have my turbine powered car roast the paint off all of the Priuses and other hybrid cars I pass while doing a ring around the Wagner, or maybe with my Porsche, or my Lancia, or once a year my Bugatti.
• Sounds like another great idea from the dimwits in Olympia. They sure are doing their part in supporting the let’s-move-to-Idaho relocation program.
• This is just an example of the state trying to run its roadways like any private business would. When there is excess demand they jack up prices. When demand is soft they lower prices. The state needs to quit acting like a socialist Soviet state and give away products to the public without any regard to economic principals. In the Soviet system product shortages were the inevitable result and in our system traffic congestion is the result.
• What a load of crap. The state can test its hot-lane pilot program right there in Olympia first. Then study it to see how it works for a few decades. Tax Olympia First!!!
• Everybody always seems to be in favor of “pay to play” — as long as it is somebody else paying to play. People are very keen on making sure that the government does not give anybody else anything for free, but they also complain if something they want is charged for.
• Another hare-brain idea from your politicians to take more money out of the pockets of people that use I- 405. Wait until they do this to all interstates. And they called Jessie James a crook. He robbed people with a Gun, the politicians Rob people with a Pen, by making laws like this. The real crooks are the politicians that are in office.
• I think the message is: YOU CAN’T GET ANYWHERE FROM HERE!
• Apparently it’s not enough to let Seattle destroy itself with useless transit projects and tunnels. Now they’re gunning to paralyze the economy of the Eastside as well. Does anyone with a brain run for public office, or are we simply choosing between moron a and moron b?
• 1955: America builds a freeway system for all, including its large middle class. 2010: America build special lanes for the rich. The shrinking middle class loses access to the highway system it paid for.
• Free and fast travel for the rich and elite and the rest of us have to slog through the general purpose lanes, which haven’t been expanded for decades.
• Let me get this straight, tax dollars pay for building these freeways, tax dollars pay for the maintenance of these freeways including expansion projects, my wife and I modify our work schedules so we can carpool to use these freeways effectively…and now they want to charge us around $1200/yr to use them?
• Am I the only who finds a big problem with us having to pay extra just to use HOV lanes in the first place? I know we’ve had to do it on 167 for a few years now, but haven’t we ALREADY PAID to get these roads built? Why should we have to pay more just to use roads???
• Now the State is trying to get the coins out of the car ashtray! (would not necessarily apply to smokers).
• The level of stupidity regarding the handling of this state’s transportation has outdone itself.
• UGH! I’d better hurry up and have children so I can ride in them free. 2+ should be plenty! 3 is overkill.
• Boy, this state sure has it in for people that drive. 10% tax when you buy a car, big gas taxes, red light cameras, speed traps, DUI checkpoints, blowing $220 million over 10 years planning for a replacement road, and now toll lanes to drive on a road you already paid for. It’s amazing people stand for it.
• What a great idea! Penalize people who are already trying to do the right thing (and make ends meet) by commuting in 2-person carpools, and restrict HOV lane use to wealthy drivers of single-occupancy vehicles! What a fantastic way to reduce congestion, motivate more people to carpool, and help average citizens get to work and pay their bills!
• What about Motorcycles? Do they pay or ride the lane for FREE?
• Anyone that doesn’t believe this is a prelude to all traffic on highways being tolled is short a few brain cells.
• This is a excellent idea except every lane should be a toll lane. On every road, freeway, bridge, etc. EVERYWHERE. The more you drive, the more you pay. If you don’t drive (like me), you don’t pay.

The real question of course is whether our state representatives and DOT managers read and pay attention to the comments on stories like this one. Even if they don’t, the comments at least provides a digital soapbox for people who choose to write one.