re: Solution to Baton Rouge and surrounding parish traffic

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Pass a local 10 cent gas tax in all four or five parishes majorly affected affected by the Miss. bridge. Build the new bridge between west Baton Rouge and Iberville. All cars registered in the four or five parishes get to use the bridge free of toll with their parish pass. All other vehicles using the bridge will have to pay a $3 for a regular sized vehicle, $6 for anything hauling basic trailer, $10 for all 18 wheelers each way.

Based on my random projections of 14,000 regular vehicles, 1,500 vehicles over the basic vehicle load, and 2,000 18 wheelers, we'd collect over $518,000,000 in tolls in 20 years. (There are estimates that 25,000 to 30,000 vehicles would use this bridge)These numbers represent paying customers. For reference, approximately 107,000 people a day were crossing the "new" bridge in 2005. That's probably increased by about 13,000 since totaling 120,000. I estimate roughly 20-25% of traffic would use this toll including the "free riders."

Add approximately $365,000,000 in gas taxes and now we are at $883,000,000 over twenty years. This would be more than enough to woo enough federal dollars to build the damn thing. Make sure we name the bridge after me too.

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