15 Jul 00

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More Kvetch About EZPass

    Ever since EZPass was added to the Garden State Parkway, strange things have been happening at the toll booths. Not that the authorities could have predicted, but I hope they have noticed by now and will make some adjustments. 

    By the way, I did not point out the other day just what EZPass is. It's a system whereby you stick a small plastic box, a transponder of sorts, onto your vehicle so that the toll booth can scan you and deduct the toll from your EZPass account, which is replenished by credit card, bank transfer, or a check that you write to them from time to time. New York has been very successful in implementing this, and you see it in Delaware as well. Maryland has the MTag, which is similar, but I heard from a toll taker there that they also plan to switch to EZPass. New Jersey is adding the feature to its tollways piecemeal. 

    I have already mentioned the mean spirited sign I saw at the toll booth not long ago. Today, coming south from Metropark, I approached the Raritan tolls with the 35¢ exact change in my hand and ready to toss into the basket, when to my horror (and this happens a lot - I mean who the fuck painted these wavy lanes??!!) I discovered that the curving approach lanes to the tolls had led me not to the Exact Change Or Token lane I'd been aiming for, but instead to the Cash Receipts lane. By the time the curvature became apparent, the Exact Change Or Token lane to the left of me was squeezed tight. Dammit. I put my change back in the door handle and pulled out a dollar bill, not wanting to piss off any toll booth attendants by giving over exactly 35¢. 

    Twenty-two miles later, coming upon the Asbury Park tolls, lo and behold, this was what I found: 

|        ^                        |EZP|-|EC|-|CR|
|        |                        \      []     |
|        |                         \     []     |
|     traffic                       \    []     |
|      flow                          \   []     |
|                                     \  []     |
|                                     |        /
|EZP|-|EC|-|CR|-|EZP|-|EZP|-|EC|-|CR|-|DT|-|DT|
|      []                    []               |
|      []                    []               |
|      []                    []               |
|      []                    []               |
|      []                    []               |
|      []                    []               |
|      []                    []               |
|      []                    []               |
|      []                    []               |
|                            {}               |


EZP = EZPass
EC = Exact Change Or Token
CR = Cash Receipts
DT = Drive Through (tolls beyond)
[] = car
{} = me
    Now, approaching this toll plaza, if you are in the far right lane already, and can see that the lines are shorter past the Drive Throughs, well then God bless you. You are gonna need it because everybody in that lane is flying up your ass at a speed that causes sonic booms. Without that alignment, however, it's a bit hard to tell how clogged up the tolls beyond the Drive Through lanes are going to be. 

    There are cars going through the EZPass and Cash Receipts lanes, but there is no point in my drawing them, because there were very few and they were not stopped in line. They were flowing rather nicely. I queued up at the end of the right Exact Change Or Token line (not the one beyond the Drive Throughs), looked around and comprehended the situation, and just sat there with my mind blown. 

    The whole point of the invention of the token, and the whole point of even suggesting exact change, is to speed things along a bit by eliminating the time costly business of handing over money and making change. The situation above is plainly asinine. Here are all these people who blew $10 for a roll of tokens, or dug around in their cars or handbags or whatever for a dime and a quarter, in order to get some speed and convenience, and what the hell? They can wait in this bigass line or they can face toll takers who are angry and resentful at people handing them exact change and tokens in person! Or they can do what I did. 

    As soon as the jet aircraft flying past my right on their way to the Drive Through Cash Receipts lanes thinned out enough to do it safely, I changed into the lane to my right. I put back the dime I had dug out, and picked up a second quarter. I gave her 50¢. And glided right past all the people with tokens, stuck in that damned lane. 

    Man, that's just not right. 

    Oh, what's EZPass got to do with any of this? Nothing really except that the addition of it threw off the dynamics of the toll plazas. I'm not enough of a statistician nor do I have the data to take a guess at the proportions of motorists who use each method, but it certainly seems those proportions are not matched to the proportions of toll booths available.  

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