EZ Tag Mania
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007Avid Chron readers might remember a story a while back about free airport parking for elected officials. There was a big debate over whether or not it’s a fair practice in the first place and whether or not some elected officials abuse the privilege. In that same vein, I learned today via TTC News that 5,500 free EZ Tags have been issued to elected officials, county and state employees, firefighters and police officers.
The tags are only supposed to be used for business, but how can that be enforced? The system has been in place for 15 years and has never gone under review to make sure the free tags are really only used for job-related trips. None of the free tag users are ever required to account for their trips or turn in any kind of paperwork to prove they only use their tags for work trips. The policy was finally placed under review last month, so I’ll be on the edge of my driver’s seat until we find out what’s going to happen.
In June of 2006, the tags cost $82,557.80. That’s only an average of about $15 per tag, which doesn’t sound too outrageous, but an average really doesn’t demonstrate any abuse of the system. How do drivers feel about this? One that was interviewed called it “unacceptable” with no explanation for his feelings. This driver isn’t quite so outraged, but I don’t like the idea of John Culberson driving to a fat sandwich shop on the Beltway on my dime - if, in fact, the taxpayers do pay for this. It’s unclear from what I’ve read where the money for this service comes from. I’ll try to investigate it and report back later on.
