It's all taking a toll on me

Knickers are in a twist out in metro-west after the Turnpike Authority announced their intentions of raising the Mass Pike tolls during rush hour this week. Hey Framingham, you should've voted for Muffy while you had the chance.

I understand the frustration of Metro-west commuters who are stuck paying for a road that was paid for in full 2 decades ago. While I don't think that we should raise tolls on the Pike, I certainly don't think that we should eliminate them either. In fact, while we're doing all of these fancy road improvement projects, we should erect toll booths on Route 24 at 140 as well as on US Route 3 on the North Shore.

I seriously don't feel bad for people who live way outside the boundaries of greater Boston who get stuck paying a toll to get to and from work. NH doesn't have a problem forcing me to pay a toll to drive on the DW Highway so I don't see why we should give our brethern from southern NH to Worcester to Fall River a free ride on our dime.

Every medium-large company has an HR department that specificially calculates the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for a particular area. For example, someone working in Worcester/Springfield will likely get paid less than someone doing their same exact job in downtown Boston. COLA is calculated strictly on which zip code the business resides in - not on where that particular employee chooses to reside. In other words, someone can be making a Boston salary but living for a heck of a lot less in Nashua should they choose to do so.

So let me get this right you metro-west cry babies: you want to have your cake and eat it too. Rather than suck it up and buy a smaller home in greater Boston you choose to take your inflated Boston salary back to your large home in Fall River/NH/central MA. You contribute nothing to our community, clog our highways, refuse to give up your Boston salary in favor of a shorter commute, and then want to stick us with the bill. Not to mention that commuters from NH drive on our roads to collect their Boston salary and then don't even turn around to pay state income taxes to Massachusetts, yet folks out in Worcester do. How is THAT fair?

Let's face it: people don't commute to Boston from the corners of the earth to make LESS than what they would make by working closer to home. Those of us in greater Boston use our Boston COLA for what it was intended for: to off-set the cost of living and working in our community. We may have to live in smaller houses and cut back a bit more, but in the end this is a decision that we choose to make - everyone else can pay a toll in order to live out their lifestyle.