Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Metro columnist Dan Casey: Parkway fees idea generates feedback
Dan Casey is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.
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@roanoke.com
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Dan Casey
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Lower the speed limit to 35 mph on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Roanoke Valley.
Turn the road over to a private contractor.
Sentence me to 200 hours of litter-picking for increasing parkway commuter traffic by 20 percent.
Is Casey smoking some of Floyd County's primary cash crop?
It seems everybody's got an opinion on the Blue Ridge Parkway tolls and/or fees -- and of the nitwit who would dare raise the question.
Thursday's column generated dozens of e-mails, phone calls and blog comments, a level of response that surprised me. Thank you for those. Keep them coming.
First up is George Hunter, a retired Roanoke schoolteacher and cyclist. He says parkway tolls are a great idea, but that they are not the only way for the National Park Service to curb rushing commuters.
"Sounds great to me," he writes. "As well as possibly lowering the speed limit to 35 mph from [U.S.] 220 to [U.S.] 460. And enforcing it. That should solve a lot of the problem."
No way, says Ron Adkins, who lives in Southwest Roanoke County.
"My emphatic answer to [tolls] is absolutely not," he said in a voice mail. "This is a public parkway. How many times does the public have to pay for something that is a public entity?"
Adkins says if the government can't afford the upkeep, "Let's turn this over to private industry and see how much better it could be run than by a bloated government bureaucracy."
From a tongue-in-cheek perspective, Chris Cannon suggests tolls might set a dangerous precedent.
"While we're at it, we should redistribute the way our road taxes are used in general," Cannon writes. "For instance, if I don't use Orange Avenue for commuting and only use it occasionally for sightseeing, I obviously shouldn't have any of my taxes used to pay for upkeep there. People that live and work in Salem shouldn't have any of their tax money used for upkeep of Roanoke roads or bridges."
The question also raised some hackles in Floyd. Reporter and BlueRidgeMuse.com blogger Doug Thompson noted that 57 local roads in Floyd County cross the parkway and that locals frequently use it to get around.
"My first thought is 'wow, Casey must be smoking some of Floyd County's primary cash crop,' " Thompson wrote. "The last thing we need in these over-taxed times is yet another way to separate cash-strapped locals from their hard-earned bucks."
John Cahoon, an engineer who lives in Franklin County, says he doesn't agree with me often. Because he did this time, "I have scheduled a psychiatric evaluation to insure that I am not hallucinating," he writes.
But he called conditions on the parkway "just the tip of an asteroid-sized iceberg that is closing fast with our entire transportation system."
Tom Karrasch, who lives off Buck Mountain Road in southern Roanoke County, slammed me for raising awareness of the shortcut. He estimated commuting traffic Thursday was up by 20 percent.
"All those readers ... weren't aware of such a great shortcut, but now are. Yes, the Parkway Service should require you to pick up litter for 200 hours."
This column is more about you than it is me, dear readers. Keep those e-mails and phone calls coming!
