The former state official who championed the public-private coalition that widened Route 3 north of Boston a decade ago is proposing a new partnership south of the city to widen Route 3 between Braintree and Norwell and pay for it with toll lanes.
The proposal, from a team led by a former Massachusetts deputy transportation secretary, Ned Corcoran, cites as a model the Virginia Department of Transportation’s newly opened high-speed toll lanes on the Capital Beltway.
Comments
And think of all the traffic congestion it will add to Route 3A in Plymouth, Route 53 in Kingston and Duxbury and Route 139 in Marshfield and Hanover.
This is a great idea. It will allow those who have the money to pay the tolls the opportunity to separate from the poor who cant afford it. Mexico has an expensive toll highway from Cancun to Chiten Itza that works great. If we can raise the cost of driving then we can get some of these poor people to get rid of their cars and then there will be more room for me.
Truly a private sector ideal!! Thanks, but if our State/Feds/citizens want a highway widened we can do it ourselves without your HELP? Mr Corcoran. The private sector is coming to save us. What a joke! Can I please get all the money back from the WALL STRET PRIVATE sector, that stole it over the past 10 years? No folks, screw these private sector incursions into OUR public business--we never get a deal and we always get screwed!!!!!!!
Another Devoidolyte hack with yet a different scheme to filch bucks from my pocket and the pockets and purses of every other taxpayer, tourist, and passerby in good old Taxawhoshetts. And one of the Glob's public revenue loving second string editors, stuck with working Christmas day, thinks it is the loverliest idea he/she has come across this year. So lead the bostonglobe.com metro section with it... why not, readers need to be woked up from their Christmas schnoozes. This Corcoran guy is really one to whom scheming should be credited... after all, he was a deputy (assistant, mind you) transportation secretary who probably reae a news report about a Virginia scheme to toll new lanes on a norther Virginia expanded roadway. This Corcoran joker wants to expand the size of Route 3 from Braintree to Norwell, as if the state owns enough land on either side of that roadway to do that. Instead of letting it gel among the bureaucrats and elected hacks on Beacon Hill, Moscowitz and some editor decide to push it front and center - a fiscal cliff may raise regular folks' federal taxes a thousand bucks or more per family in 2013 and these 'public spirited' globies opt to push an idea for another thousand to be filched from commuters' pockets and maybe tens or hundreds from less frequent drivers along Route 3. And all this from a guy who was a DEPUTY.... Just think what he might be asked about if he ever served as a top state management hack. . . . Where is Howie when you need him???
Private sector toll collection? No. Not only that, the back-up from congestion on Rte 3 while they collect tolls would be a nightmare. (Doesn't matter from which direction they would collect, northbound or [god forbid] southbound)
Another former state hack swinging back to "wet his beak" off the public trough network. Sounds like the old retired MBTA official turned winning private contractor ( closed commuter rail bidding please) two step. When people are giving you answers to questions you're not asking be VERY suspicious.
Here's an idea, cut the EBT cards, cut the abusive public sector pensions, cut the bureaucracy on Beacon Hill, make the General Court a per diem part time job that meets every other year, use non-union labor on the job, and the money will be there to widen Route 3 without need for tolls.