Miami Dade Expressway gives free rides during holiday

No tolls will be collected on the Miami-Dade toll expressway system for the Thanksgiving holiday, Thursday, and Friday also. The expressway authority board voted this month to waive all tolls as part of a two-day "customer appreciation" experiment.

They are giving employees time off too.

COMMENT: Like having toll-free segments in a tollroad system, we think this is a bad idea – on the slippery slope argument. Once tolls are suspended for one holiday the demands grow for suspending them on other holidays. And then, why not weekends? Before you know it you have a road without revenue, one of those benighted 'freeways'.

A better argument for no toll collection on Thanksgiving would be that the traffic is so light that the toll revenues aren't worth the cost of staffing up the toll booths.

But what do others think? We'll post any comments readers care to make below.

TOLLROADSnews 2007-11-21