Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Toll Roads

 
The debate - To use them or not to use them?




Lee had a meeting in Fort Worth this past weekend.  The meeting started on Friday, so we decided to drive through the night on Thursday night.  That decision was a brilliant one, if you don't mind me saying!  Simply in the fact that we gave Gage a bottle about an hour into the trip, when we were already stopping to fill up, and he slept the rest of the way!!!  Whew...that makes an 8 hr trip with a baby tolerable!!!  (I'll tell you later about the drive home!)
So, as we are driving through Austin at 11:30 at night, we decided to stay on I-35, as there shouldn't be much traffic that late.  Ha ha, I know, joke's on us!  They had I-35 down to one lane through most of Austin!  It took us an extra hour just to drive through Austin.  Enter in:  The Toll Roads


Soooo....on the way home, it's Sunday late afternoon, after a long weekend.  We figure there will be more traffic then and decide to take the new Toll Road.  This new road starts in Georgetown (about 30 miles N of Austin) and ends in Buda (about 30 miles S of Austin).  I happen to have purchased a TX Toll Tag a few years ago, even though it is seldom used and every time we drive on it or through Austin, we talk about the pros/cons of using that road.


What we never have known how much it costs to drive the entire length...until now.  I just received the emailed bill and it cost us $16.80 to travel one direction, which means if we had used it both ways, we would have paid $33.70 to drive around Austin and avoid the traffic.  That's the cost of a decent meal right there!


So...the debate.  Will we continue using the Toll Road and pay $33.70 to drive around Austin...or are we willing to sacrifice the time and sanity of messing with the traffic???  It will be interesting to see.  I know that as we sat in traffic for an hour at midnight on Thursday, I would have paid the money. But probably been pretty hacked!

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