NJ Garden State Parkway Tokens Pay Tolls To Hell By Anthony Buccino

Toll booth advocates espouse the logic of strategically placed roadblocks that make the highway more democratic. For one thing, toll plazas make just about everyone drive at the same speed: zero.

We've always wondered if the old wives who said misery loves company ever spent time, endless smog-filled rush hours in line, attempting to pay a toll on the Garden State Parkway. In countless hours of studying the pained expressions of obsessed drivers queued before the flashing red and green lights at the roadway obstructions, we have never recorded a smile other than the maniacal grin as someone launches a round metal missile at the urinal shaped receptacle.

These token tumbling commuters are not happy campers.

If only they knew how happy they should be. They have the privilege of tooling along the Garden State Parkway from the northern most part of the state to the southernmost pausing occasionally to hurl a coin or two.

Toll booth advocates espouse the logic of strategically placed roadblocks that make the highway more democratic. 

For one thing, toll plazas make just about everyone drive at the same speed: zero.

For another thing, the lines leading up to the slots will help you sharpen your brain power by testing your mettle. 

Regardless of whether you are a right-lane slow poke, a center-lane observer of the posted speed limit, or a left-lane speed demon, any progress you made driving the way you do, will be obliterated as you approach the toll plaza.

The high way authority secretly spent money on sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment that helps to determine which line you are in and then make all the other toll lines move along much, much faster.

 And you thought that was an optical illusion.


 The revival of Atlantic City has been a great boon to the parkway. In addition to having all the bennies sitting in traffic jams heading to Seaside Heights, the malaise continues all the way past the shore points to happily release these wanton gamblers to another toll road - the ACE into the east's den of iniquity. The road to hell, er, Atlantic City is paved with parkway tokens.

 Every day at rush hour and often beyond, motorists are idling from Hillside to Clifton because of the ill-fated placement of two major toll plazas and countless more at exit and entrance ramps in so few miles.

 Anyone who could bottle the angst produced daily by those thousands of drivers caught in the hammer could rule the world.

 On a good day, that is the rare day when no one else is on the road, the parkway is a pleasant enough roadway on which to enjoy a Sunday ride.

 You won't need an engineering degree to see for yourself after driving a few miles that there has to be a better way to pay for this self-perpetuating dictatorship.

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