Melisa Evangelos's uninformed letter to the editor regarding Tolls on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was an insult. People who don't use the bridge think the users should pay - then lets apply that to the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the 520 - but that's not the issue here! If you knew that:
- 90 percent of the toll payers live in the Gig Harbor/Port Orchard area. Over 70 percent of those people voted against this bridge.
- The cost of the bridge was originally advertised to cost $300 million and now, including financing, will actually cost $2.3 Billion.
- The bridge is supposed to solve congestion but it only adds one HOV lane in each direction.
- $100 million toll dollars a year will be sucked out of our communities, devastating our economy.
- These same toll payers who are forced to pay for a bridge they didn't want are now being forced to pay higher gas taxes to pay for everyone else's "toll free" bridges and roads.
Yes — the Tacoma Narrows Bridge toll payers are mad as hell as witnessed by the near riot at the recent DOT Toll Meeting in Gig Harbor but we're mad about the inequity and the unfairness of being forced to pay for this "unwanted" bridge with our tolls alone and then, to add insult to injury, increasing our gas tax to make us pay for all the other toll free road and bridge projects across this state. That's simply not fair!
When they come to toll your road, and they will, it won't be quite so amusing, Ms. Evangelos!
Randy Boss
Gig Harbor |
