Sunday, June 03, 2012

Nash asks: If those who benefit must pay for it, then why not toll Spring Street hill?

But maybe we're being too harsh on CM CeeSaw. After all, in pushing for the repairs to Spring Street hill, he's only doing what any politician does: Bringing back some pork to his neighbors, who should be part of the 1st council district, anyway.

NASH: A little bit of everything, by Matt Nash

... A few weeks ago the New Albany City Council failed to pass a non-binding resolution condemning the use of tolls to fund the Ohio River Bridges project. After being the first municipal government to speak out against tolls a couple of years ago, this time the vote went the other way. A couple of the councilmen spoke out about how much our community needed both of these bridges and the only fair way to pay for it is with tolls.

The resolution was in response to a study that shows the downtown bridge will have a negative impact on the lives of Hoosiers and the people of our state will end up paying a disproportionate amount of the cost of these bridges.

Interestingly the same city council voted to spend $660,000 of taxpayer money to fix the problems with Spring Street Hill. This after spending $1.3 million on the road just a few years ago. The road allows better access to a select few in the neighborhood of Silver Hills. Had the pro-toll councilman used the same logic as the “Bridges Authority” that those who benefit should be the ones who pay for the project, they could have just made Spring Street Hill a toll road too.

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