Gov. Patrick is crossing his fingers and hoping you’ll forget everything he’s done in office since 2006.
Everybody knows the Mass Pike sucks. And I mean “everybody.” The Reason Foundation did an analysis of the worst-run toll systems in America, and Massachusetts was at the top of the list. It costs us 79 cents to collect every dollar in tolls. How’s that 21 cents workin’ out for ya?
So Gov. Patrick, desperate to do something to get the voters to forget his massive tax hikes, scam jobs for pals plans, ineffective leadership and general uselessness, has decided to jump on the anti-Pike bandwagon. According to today’s Boston Herald, Gov. Patrick is considering shutting down the toll booths, getting rid of the toll takers and opening up the Pike.
“Open tolling,” that is. It’s that system that charges you a toll and you never even know it. They read transponders or scan your license plate, etc. No booths or slow downs. Just money. It makes shaking down drivers so easy, why, you could put the system up anywhere!
Administration officials said it’s too early to discuss cost or design of the electronic tolling because it is so early in the process. The aide said open-road tolling is solely being eyed for the Pike and not other highways such as Interstates 93 or 95, which currently have no tolls. [emphasis added]
“Solely being eyed for the Pike.” Of course it is. Why, it would never occur to the boys on Beacon Hill to look at all that traffic on I-93 or 128 or Rte 3 and think “Hey, with open tolling, we could be collecting another couple a hundred million bucks a year, without breaking a sweat!” No, I’m sure they will happily leave that easy revenue on the roadways.
C’mon—if you can’t trust a Massachusetts legislator, who can you trust? And besides, if they do get a little greedy and try to pick your highway pocket, we’ve always got that tough hombre Deval Patrick ridin’ herd on the Beacon Hill corral. And to paraphrase President Obama:
“Nobody messes with Deval.”
So all you I-93/95 drivers who oppose getting rid of all tolls and shifting the cost to a small gas tax increase—relax. No reason to worry you’ll be getting clobbered for $1500 a year like us Pike drivers.
An aide to Gov. Patrick said so.
The Democrats are going to get beaten badly in November. Not just because the economy is ailing. And not just because Obama overread his mandate in governing too far left. But because a comeuppance is due the arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt for the great unwashed prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to those who dare oppose them. 
