Oregon solved the Interstate 5 congestion — declare war on the poor. If you are the working poor, making $15 per hour, Oregon wants you off the freeways and on public transit. An onerous toll accomplishes liberal goals: the working poor can’t afford to use I-5 to commute because it may take two hours of work to pay the toll.
The wealthy work minutes to pay it, and get open roads unfettered by working poor. On weekends, when the working poor can’t afford Portland, the wealthy can drive their Lexus cars and visit The Pearl District with no struggling families clogging roads. Because the working poor will go elsewhere, Oregon will see general road use drop and fewer regular folk using cars, so there will be lower infrastructure spending. Maybe Oregon will build more light rail so they can funnel the working poor into their kind of places.
And here is the “long game” of an I-5 toll: “Checkpoint Charlie” on the freeway. American lifeblood is free and open travel. No matter who you are, you can get on a freeway and travel. That is America. Liberal Oregon wants that sort of thing stopped. If you have to pass a government checkpoint to go from state to state, we fray the very fabric of freedom.
