🚀 go-pugleaf

The E-Z Pass in NY/NJ actually covers quite a few states and it
includes not only tolls on the roads, but bridges and tunnels too.
Compared to the manual collection method, it's a wonderful device,
though hardly ideal.

E-Z Pass users get their own lane. They still have to pass through the
plaza, which seems silly to me. Why modern systems don't just use an
overhead detector on nothing more than a big bar over the highway, I
don't know. It might have something to do with speed, though you
mention full highway speeds in O.C.

The "pay for what you use" model applies to many other modes of
transport, from phone calls to freight shipping.  I wonder, for those
who might explain, why tolls aren't used more often? If you remove the
congestion factor, it seems to make sense. Technology is good enough
to eliminate those bottle-necking toll plazas. Will LA County or
California ever start charging for use of its roads? Hmmm, there are
the fed and state fuel taxes, I guess that's sorta like a "pay for
what you use" system. Anyone have more info?

-rig

Merritt Mullen <mmullen8014@home.com> wrote in message news:<B7AAD76E.516F2%mmullen8014@home.com>...
<clipped>
> I thought we discussed this before, Dave (but maybe it was with someone
> else).  California tollways (at least in Orange County, which may be the
> only ones in California) do not have toll booths/plazas on the main highway.
> If you have a transponder you never pass a toll booth (except on some exit
> ramps).  For people who must pay cash (no transponder) a toll plaza is
> located off of the highway so as not to obstruct transponder-equipped
> vehicles.  Transponder-equipped vehicles whiz by at full highway speed
> (usually about 80 mph, although the speed limit is 65 mph).
> 
> It seems to be the East coast that has a problem with toll booths.  I just
> read that NJ has something called the "E-ZPass" system designed to
> automatically charge vehicles for their tolls, but that the E-ZPass vehicles
> are STILL required to pass through the toll plaza with its backed-up traffic
> and the system is billing people incorrectly.  See NY Times article of 19
> August:
> 
>  http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/19/nyregion/19COMM.html
> 
> Merritt