Why Toll Booths Should Be Eliminated

Toll booths are a good example of government foolishness. The argument for them is that they enable the tax to be a user fee. The users pay the tax, like when a fee is charged to visit a park.

But that argument is dwarfed by the counterarguments. Indeed, if I were deliberately trying to create a foolish way to tax, I couldn't think of a worse way than toll booths: They

• steal people's time.

• increase air pollution

• waste gas

• are regressive: the poor pay the most painful amount of tax.
  

If government decides it needs to tax drivers more (It doesn't, in my view,) let it add a highway-toll tax to the vehicle registration fees in counties that currently have toll booths, with more expensive and lower-gas-mileage vehicles paying higher fees.

Of course, that means that drivers living in toll-free counties that drive across toll bridges and tunnels get a free ride. But that imperfection in taxation is far smaller than the imperfections cited above.