America's New Fastest Road

I thought I liked driving fast but a speed limit set at 85mph? What are you crazy? This new toll road in Texas links Austin to San Antonio. A private company has shelled out the cash personally for the road, they get to maintain and operate the road for the next 50 years and in return they keep most of the money from the toll. Here is the catch, they are charging $6.17 to use the road.

The video does some interesting number crunching and it turns out, at 41 miles, that $6.17 compares pretty favorably to other toll roads across the country if you go by the dollar per mile. Sounds great but I think you have to remember that the rate only holds its value if you are using the whole 41 miles.

Either way wherever you are going on the toll, you will be getting there fast.

Link Unique Daily


"The video does some interesting number crunching"

Like the "Delaware Turnpike" (most people know it as I-95) is only a toll if you are crossing the Maryland state line (which is easy enough to avoid).
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that sounds really fast but given that texas already has interstates that are set at 80mph its not really that big of an increase. of course here in louisiana where the interstate and some highways are limited at 75mph people usually drive 5 over the limit(some crazy ones go 10 over). So if the sign said 85 people could be goin at 90 or 95mph! now THAT is crazy!
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tried this out Wednesday when it opened. Beautiful rolling hills, very good road surface, made me think of the autobahn. Only complaint is that it gets pretty windy through there and the lanes are little narrow for any wind wobble. It's going to be part of my regular commute so let see how it stands the test of time.
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Hah! Drive from Palm Springs to Indio down Blood Alley. Speed of traffic is 100 mph. Last time I was there, I had to pull into the right hand lane to slow down to 80.
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My inner old man: It would be nice if CNN would just report a news story like they used to and leave the comedy asides to programs that are NOT on a news channel.
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ya know I just thought of something, a lot of cars made in the 80's and 90's had speedometers that only went up to 80mph(it was a law for a while) so if someone has one of those how do they know when they're going 85. I wonder if it would be a good enough excuse to get out of a ticket.
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I don't understand why the whole fuss about 85mph speed limit. US is among the countries with lowest speed limits. The usual speed limit in Europe is 130km/h (~80mph) on highways, in some countries it is 140km/h, in Germany on some highways you can legally drive as fast as your car can go. People drive, accidents are not much more common than in US. Are American drivers really that bad that they can not be allowed to go faster than 65mph (105km/h)?
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