Tolling Mockingbird Lane

Ideally, city services that do not involve police protection or the courts would be completely privatized. Under such a system, tolling city roads would make perfect sense, especially since the technology now exists to do this without toll booths. That is why I like the idea of tolling Mockingbird Lane in Dallas, but I suspect that so long as the road is ultimately owned by the State of Texas, this idea to toll Mockingbird Lane for nonresidents of the city may not be Constitutional due to something known as the “dormant commerce clause”, and/or the “privileges and immunities clause”. This Wikipedia article says that there is a “market participant” exception to the dormant commerce clause, but I don’t know if the courts would say that it applies in this situation. There would still be an issue of the right to travel, which is recognized by Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution. The only way to avoid all of this would be to toll everyone who uses Mockingbird Lane, regardless of residency.

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dean

I am Dean Cook. I currently live in Dallas Texas.