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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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