I hate Texas toll road!

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And I thought Texans hating California gas price was bad. I am now renting a car in Dallas trying to Google map my way around and all of a sudden I am accidentally on one.

I was spending my attention on my phone actively avoiding every single toll road and then one missing sign later I am on a highway with no sign telling you which one you are on, and all you see is the toll entrance, toll exit, last free road, and if you are lucky how much you will be charged for. Why are Texas so stingy on road signs? It is like they are made of gold instead of steel, and why are road signs so small that by the time you can see them you already miss them?

It also took me a day or so to understand frontage road is not a road, it is a parallel ramp and you have use the second left land to make a left turn off the highway, and you have to just make a right turn on gut instinct before you see a highway exit sign or you will miss it, and sometimes a highway is the frontage road and you have to go on and off and on and off the highway ramp to stay on a real state highway instead of accidentally get on a turnpike also known as a toll road.

For every dollar you guys save on gas you are paying more on toll, I feel your pain.

Btw, I didnt sign up for the etoll tag of Avis budget, and I didn't turn the thing on, how do I pay by mail without the rental company charge me $7 a day for the admin fee for a 50c toll?
 
Texans are cool drivers and not as crazy as others have warned me about though. They are just like LA drivers except they drive about 10mph faster and the semis are on every lane except the left most one. I am comfortable around them doing 85 or so, and avoid being the fastest one leading the pack. This is just like southern California driving.

Gas price also seems more stable in the plus minus 10c range instead of plus minus 30c, for the time I am here.

The Austin South Central Congress road rear in diagonal parking is sure weird, I think this is one thing I don't understand, can anyone explain what is the benefit?
 
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Originally Posted by PandaBear
Texans are cool drivers and not as crazy as others have warned me about though. They are just like LA drivers except they drive about 10mph faster and the semis are on every lane except the left most one. I am comfortable around them doing 85 or so, and avoid being the fastest one leading the pack. This is just like southern California driving.

Gas price also seems more stable in the plus minus 10c range instead of plus minus 30c, for the time I am here.

The Austin South Central Congress road rear in diagonal parking is sure weird, I think this is one thing I don't understand, can anyone explain what is the benefit?

You take Texans out of Texas and they drive like frickin animals. If someone is driving crazy there's a 90% chance they have Texas or Colorado plates.

Although driving in Texas is awesome. You can't drive like you do in Texas in Kansas without killing someone.
 
Also when I went to Spring Break in 2018 down in Padre, I probably racked up like $5-10 in tolls. I never got a letter from Texas about the fees. My car probably is prohibited in Texas now.
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Also it seems like hotels of the same grade are much cheaper than California or Hawaii, I havent seen Best Western Plus or Fairfield Inn this cheap since early 2000s in California.

One thing I find is also every one here give super generous rating and I think I have to curve the rating down by about 0.5 on both Yelp and Trip Advisor to make them comparable.

Unfortunately it seems like most hotel waffle irons are under power and waffles they make are soggy, even McDonald's hash browns are soggy and underfried. I don't believe potatoes should be juicy like BBQ briskets.

Terry Black's briskets are awesome, I went twice.
 
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Originally Posted by FordBroncoVWJeta

You take Texans out of Texas and they drive like frickin animals. If someone is driving crazy there's a 90% chance they have Texas or Colorado plates.


Every time I've come across a Colorado plate they're going 10+ UNDER the limit and hogging the left lane
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But there's a few highways up here that are like that. You'll be on the highway, there's one sign saying "Illinois Tollroad" and now you're stuck paying a toll to get off. If you don't have an iPass or EZpass and accidentally go through the electronic only lanes, there's a website you can go to, plug in your plate and plaza number (if you know it), and pay the toll. They give you a week to do it.
 
I just hated it when Texas went to tolls. Started off innocent enough, was supposed to pay for the bridge going over the ship channel. Now, it seems like every new road is a toll road. I live in Az now but before I left Texas my EZ tag usually rang $200 a month easy, just getting around.
 
Some weird road signs I see:

Various lane closed, that's nice sir but please tell me which one or else what am I gonna do with this info.

Blinking light means stop sign and you can go after stopping, or something like that. Shouldn't people know that after the written DMV test?

Make room for flashing emergency vehicles and police, it is the law. Again shouldn't this be part of driving test?

Three rows to read on the two row size signs. Thank you sir for being polite but I need to read it fast enough going along the traffic speed, politeness is not safe here.

Toll exit or toll entrance, can someone tell me how much ahead of time before I get on the road instead of when I am trying to get off?Or if I don't want to pay now when should I leave, or how much more or less I have to pay if I skip this?
 
I moved to Texas two years ago after spending 16 years in the Midwest.

I take a toll road to get to work and for me it's worth it. Compared to a free expressway 10 miles south of but also running east-west, the toll road is better maintained and has less traffic. I just think of my toll expenses as my state income tax. But on the weekends, I sometimes take the free expressway when I am not as pressed for time. Where I used to live in the Midwest, there was property taxes on cars and state income tax. Here there's no property tax on cars, no state income tax, slightly lower sales tax, but the property taxes on homes are definitely higher and then there's the toll roads. The government will always find a way to get money from you.

The service roads running parallel to the expressways took some getting used to though.
 
Originally Posted by PandaBear

Blinking light means stop sign and you can go after stopping, or something like that. Shouldn't people know that after the written DMV test?

Flashing red, stop sign. Flashing yellow, proceed with caution.
 
The Pennsylvania turnpike is over $50 end to end. The 407 in Toronto is $45. Toll roads around DC are $40. Makes Texas look pretty reasonable.
 
Grew up in TX.

1) the property taxes more than make up for state income tax
2) the shoulder IS a viable lane, moreso the further south you go.
3) driving in mexico is different. Beware some people think that they're still in mexico, even though they arent.
4) toll roads around austin are worth it. I avoid that place like the plague.
5) houston is easy. Its circles overlaying a grid. Dallas will mess you up tho
 
They are doing something like it in WA by tolling the HOV lanes. The price goes up depending on a algorithm that figures in traffic and time of day. Max is $10.

Another bright idea here that is coming is to tax all driver 2.5¢ per mile. The state will drop their part of the fuel tax. If you figure it out chances are you will pay a lot more in the end.

Driving is becoming more expensive. I think they are planning this.
 
Originally Posted by PimTac
Another bright idea here that is coming is to tax all driver 2.5¢ per mile. The state will drop their part of the fuel tax. If you figure it out chances are you will pay a lot more in the end.

You probably already know this, but this is likely because of the hybrids, upcoming electric vehicles, and fuel efficient vehicles in general, where the state is losing income for roads.
 
Take a deep breath. Look a little deeper and you will understand better. Texas is a vast, still mostly rural state. The Urban areas, Houston, Dallas, Austin, etc. should primarily bear the responsibility for the massive road building that goes on in these urban centers. Why would someone in west TX, for example, have to fund roads in Houston that he probably won't use but maybe once every 5-10 years if at all? Texas decided that the commuters who use these toll roads should pay for them instead of Socializing their cost all across the state. Pay as you use makes sense.
 
Originally Posted by Kestas
Originally Posted by PimTac
Another bright idea here that is coming is to tax all driver 2.5¢ per mile. The state will drop their part of the fuel tax. If you figure it out chances are you will pay a lot more in the end.

You probably already know this, but this is likely because of the hybrids, upcoming electric vehicles, and fuel efficient vehicles in general, where the state is losing income for roads.

Yes that is definitely part of the equation.

Edit: it should be stated that this money does not go entirely to the roads. They stopped that many years ago.
 
AFAIK, you can't avoid Avis billing you for the toll. I tried to self pay a toll between the 5 and 405 in CA, ironically, and it said the lic plate is already registered to pay the toll. If you don't activate/open the tag, they will bill at a higher rate and likewise you. There are no toll booths; they bill by mail if you don't have a tag.

Did you enable "avoid tolls" in Google Maps?

Property tax on a $500k home in TX is roughly about what it is on a $1M home in CA. But what you get in TX for that price is a vastly different story.

Oh, and something you may not be accustomed to, TX has cops, and lots of them LOL.
 
Best way to avoid tolls on Texas highways is to set your Waze app to avoid tolls. The only time we get on toll roads is to avoid either going the long way to our destination or if the toll road is in significantly better shape.
 
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