filed under Daily Dose
To solve bridge maintenance problem…
7:07AM ON
07/15/2008
BY
Dave Segal
Build a really long new bridge:
The biggest, most dramatic, if maybe not the most serious suggestion from the URI professors?
Build a bridge from Rhode Island to Long Island, and make money from tolls. Such a bridge, going from Orient Point on Long Island across the mouth of Long Island Sound via Plum Island and Fishers Island to Westerly, has been talked about, although not recently.
I actually think that tolls at the Connecticut border probably make sense. And the truck stop idea doesn’t sound bad either:
Build, in partnership with a private company, a big, high-quality truck stop. “We do not have a good truck stop in Rhode Island,” and there’s a market for one, Hales said. Give truck drivers a good reason to stop — an attractive place, facilities, shopping within walking distance — and they might pay to stay a day or two.
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3 Comments on “ To solve bridge maintenance problem… ”
July 15th, 2008 at 10:35AM
Beth Comery Says:
Re:toll booths. I respectfully disagree. Exhibit A is the Garden State Parkway where I have nearly died a fiery death about a million times. First of all, this will cost the state money to build and man. I think they are just throwing this horrible idea out there, so we will all get into a lather at how horrible it is, and then the inevitable gas tax increase won’t seem so bad in comparison. But I like that bridge idea!
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July 15th, 2008 at 3:57PM
JOE BERNSTEIN Says:
A bridge to LI wouldn’t be a joke if we lived in Japan.The Japanese have accomodated to high living costs,limited housing costs,and fuel prices by building amazing examples of public works such as tunnels,bridges,high speed rail,and earthquake resistant skyscrapers by just doing it and not getting bogged down in years of wasted time spent on “impact studies”,political payoffs,etc.
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July 15th, 2008 at 10:42PM
Jef Nickerson Says:
Is this some magical bridge that just builds itself and allows us to get naked and roll in the money generated by the tolls; or is this a real bridge that would take 10, 20, 30… years of toll collections to pay for and maintain it before it turned a profit?
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