Toll lanes coming on the 405
 

http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/04/27/...ortation-offi/

kinda bullshit. the traffic will be just greeaaaaat with construction and now 1 less lane thats being wasted towards the rich pricks who can afford it.

"The board voted 12-4 to move forward with a 14-mile project to widen the 405 between Long Beach and Costa Mesa by adding one regular lane and one toll lane in each direction. It also calls for converting the existing carpool lane into a toll lane."

It won't be one less lane?
Idk where they are gonna find room for more lanes though..
I like the carpool lane too..

i use the fastrak lanes on the 110, best thing ever
too bad 405 wont be the same, but still ok.

wow it'd go from the 73 to the 605! thats a lot of work lol

"By the year 2040, the expansion is estimated to shrink commute times in the free lanes between the two areas from 57 minutes to 29 minutes, according to a staff report."

im going to call bs on that one... i dont think they've accounted for everything. or maybe theyre counting on there being no water in socal and people leaving the state over the next few decades.. lol

By 2040 LA will have 10 million more drivers on the road, and they'll need to start construction again.

So.... 1.7 billion to increase traffic for 25 years? Which, at that point, will only add a lane. Doing the math really quick, like @Hyper4mance2k said... Will just equal out to the increased traffic flow with growth of population. Helping no one.

On a positive note, increases jobs, which is really where they were able to get backing here.

However, spending government money for job growth in a deficit causes a strain on the economy. Government job creation only grows the economy when the government is in a budget surpluss.
So though it sounds good, no new wealth is being created, and the new jobs are funded through deficit spending. This pules money out of the economy to pay the employees, and taxes must be increased to fund the new jobs. It's a lose lose when the government does this. I see no positives.

Here's an idea: instead of adding toll and carpool lanes no one uses and doesn't help traffic much, just add some lanes. But I guess this is how they pay for it.

None of this makes any sense.

“If we don’t kill kittens, Caltrans is going to kill kittens,” said Jeffery Lalloway, chair of the Orange County Transportation Authority board. “And if Caltrans kills kittens … no one’s going to like what comes out. So we pretty much decided that if kittens will be killed, we should be the ones doing it”

Fixed. Cause they had NO choice.

Yay! Selling out of freeways once again, for a one time payment to allow them to be controlled by someone else. Wonderful. $9 tolls, here we come!

And the whole toll roads, fastrak, fastrak toll thing is just annoying and confusing to me lol. This freeway is covered by fastrak, but not by toll roads, but that freeway is toll roads but not fastrak. Wtf lol.

Screw it, lets do a group buy on part of the freeway, and setup our own tolls. Everyone else is doing it?! Might as well jump on the train!

You need money to pay workers. When there is no state money to pay workers the money has to come from the existing economy by way of taxes. The job growth does not grow the economy, it only redistributes wealth. Redistribution w/o economic growth leads to inflation rates higher than growth rates, and eventually a recession. Remember 2008? Want that again? No. Governments cant spread wealth and expect economic growth, that's not how it works.
See Macroeconomics 101 for more information.

and instead of tolls, why dont we just take money from the education system?

oh wait.

or maybe sell excess water?

hmm, that wont work either.

I think our best bet is to just steal a freeway from another state. Like arizona. Isn't that place just a desert? Theres gotta be highways out there they don't need.

Why do you think the state doesn't have money? All "state money" is from taxes. I'm not sure I understand your distinction between state money and taxes.

Redistributing wealth in this way does grow the economy. If you take money away from someone rich (who doesn't spend all their money and sends a significant portion to unproductive investments to accumulate) and give it to a construction worker (who spends all his money) there is more money IN the economy, which grows it.


I don't know what you're referring to happening in 2008 and I don't know why you think redistribution somehow leads to inflation.


That's exactly how it works. If you take money away from rich people who store their wealth in the secondary stock market (which is not productive) and spend that money on infrastructure projects, you get two benefits, better infrastructure and the people who do the work have more money, which they spend 100% of in the economy.

The state is broke and operating in debt. The budget may be "balanced" but the state still has more debts than it has income. The state should not spend money to build roads with money it doesn't have. That's like taking out a load to buy a turbo, and paying for that load with another loan. Why don't people understand this?

Spending money doesn't grow the economy. Putting it in banks (like rich people do) so banks can loan it out to people to buy houses and build businesses and build apartments, so the bank can make money on the investment is what grows the economy.

You need to go back to school. Economic growth comes from the CREATION of new money. I am a bank. I take a $1000 deposit from Bob. Jim wants to open a business. Jim takes out a $500 loan. Bank has $1500 in liability assets, the economy grew. The economy doesn't grow from shuffling and spending money.


Capital has to be created to grow the economy. If you and I give you $20, and you give it to bill, and bill gives it to Paul there is no growth. Paul needs to lend it to Sally, so sally can have a debt to Paul and reinvest her $20 into making more money. Then, whatever Sally makes is growth because she is ADDING to the only $20 that existed in our make believe economy.