Recent Chicago Parking Audit Spells Bad News for Motorists (and Every Other Resident)
By Shelia Dunn, NMA Communications Director This post originally appeared as NMA E-Newsletter #708 from August 2022. If you would like to subscribe to the newsletter, a weekly one-topic look at a motorist issue, click here. As of 2022, 61 years are left on the 75-year parking meter lease now held by the Chicago Parking Meters […]
Recent Chicago Parking Audit Spells Bad News for Motorists (and Every Other Resident): NMA E-Newsletter #708
As of 2022, 61 years are left on the 75-year parking meter lease now held by the Chicago Parking Meters LLC. A recent city audit stated that the private company had already recouped its entire $1.16 billion investment plus $502.5 million more. According to a recent Chicago Sun-Times article, Chicago parking meter revenue is back […]
A State Should Never Lease Its Roads
Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared in October 2020 as an NMA E-Newsletter #614. If you would like to receive our one-topic weekly E-Newsletter, join the NMA today. Reason Foundation’s Transportation Guru Robert Poole released a study in August of how nine states could financially benefit if they were to lease their toll road systems to […]
The Fight over NYC Congestion Pricing Goes on. And on…
By Shelia Dunn, NMA Communications Director Could congestion pricing for New York City be over? Probably not, but it will likely not meet its January 2021 start date and not necessarily due to the COVID-19 crisis. The scheme was already in doubt in February before everything hit the proverbial fan. Metropolitan Transportation Administration Chair Pat […]
Opposition comes Together to Oppose Federal Bailout for Toll Operators: NYC Congestion Pricing now Iffy
By Shelia Dunn, NMA Communications Director The Newspaper. Com reported this month that traffic is down two-thirds on US toll roads. This downturn in traffic indeed threatens the revenue model of the foreign companies that operate them. So much so, that earlier in the month, the International Bridge, Tunnel, and Turnpike Authority asked the federal […]
Driving in America—Are We There Yet?
By Shelia Dunn, NMA Communications Director Motorist advocates have many choices to make when it comes to fighting for rights. Trends change and either becomes complicated or simplified just because an elected official says “Enough!” Case in point: Texas Governor Greg Abbott vowed when he was running for governor in 2018 that he would like […]
Driving in America: Alliance for Toll-Free Interstates Update
Editor’s Note: The National Motorists Association and the Alliance for Toll-free Interstates or ATFI are in agreement about tolls. ATFI recently emailed this newsletter out to supporters, outlining the latest tolling in America news from the summer and fall of 2019. The NMA has permission to repost its email newsletter in the Driving in America […]
Are We Slinking Ever Closer to a Universal Road User Charge? Part 2—Congress: NMA E-Newsletter #550
Last week, in Part one of Are We Slinking Ever Closer to a Universal Road User Charge?, we examined the efforts of various groups that are currently pushing road user fees onto the American public. (A road user charge or RUC is also commonly referred to as the Vehicle Miles Traveled Tax or VMT Tax […]
Are We Slinking Ever Closer to a Universal Road User Charge? Part 1—the National Landscape: NMA E-Newsletter #549
A road user charge or RUC (also referred to as the Vehicle Miles Traveled Tax or VMT Tax and Mileage Based User Fees or MBUF) currently permeates nearly every discussion of how our country will pay for infrastructure in the future. Many transportation planners and elected officials seem to agree the time has come to […]
NMA Principle Number 6: Reasonable highway user fees for maintaining and improving highways, not for financing non-highway projects
The Driving in America Blog was started a year ago to bring more information to those who are beginning their journey as motorists’ rights advocates. Over the next several months, I will be working with each of the seven NMA principles to give readers of this weekly blog some idea of what we all are working towards […]