A twenty minute trip to the Bronx just took me an hour. Why? People are too dumb to use E-Z Pass. The toll booth for the Throggs Neck Bridge was backed up almost all the way to the Cross Bronx. The Whitestone Bridge is usually worse. I figured--bridge construction (which there was). I bitched about the $8 it cost me to cross and sit in that wonderful tie-up. I bitched even more when I got up to the tolls and saw it was the cash lanes that created the jam. I really don't understand how anyone that drives cannot have an E-Z Pass. They only require a small deposit and they make life so much easier, not only for them, but for everyone around them. And, you always find the people that go to the front of the line without the pass and have to wait for someone to get them through or the others who wait for the last second to pull over!
Maybe the people that go live in Alaska have the right idea. The worst traffic I saw was 5 cars waiting for a red light.
7 comments:
Are you hearing Alaska calling your name? :-)
No, it is a place that I loved to visit, that I want to return to, but I can never live in. I'm a city girl. I love my subways, buses, sidewalks, museums, theater,etc, etc, etc.
Awww. It's stories like that that make me never want a car again! Sorry for the ickiness!!
Anytime I have to take the Throgs Neck/GW combination, I plan on my trip taking at least 2 hours longer than it should. I'm hoping they remove the toll gates soon like the did along the Garden State Parkway.
Another unfortunate feature of that traffic pattern is the lack of signs directing EZ Pass Vs. non EZ Pass drivers. You have to figure it out as you approach the toll booths and also watch out for people suddenly cutting over to be in non EZ Pass lanes. My husband and I always marvel at how dumb people are when it comes to taking advantage of having EZ Pass. The other dumb thing of course is not removing the toll booths. I guess someone has to take up the slack and provide some jobs for people. I hope one day we can emulate an Atlanta highway I once was on, which had no toll booths,four lanes not counting an express lane, and signs which said something like, "Maintain speed through toll plaza". The speed limit was a more realistic 65 mph. It was jammed at rush hour, but was great in between rush hours from what we observed. In New York, you even have to be street smart about which lanes to travel in to avoid the cash payers. They can't all be from out of state.
I agree with you about the miserable markings of E-Z pass lanes. The markings are even worse on the Whitestone Bridge. Out of state is no excuse--we use our E-Z pass all over.
That's true, we've used our EZ Pass up and down I 95 down to Georgia and up through New England. It's just so amazing that so many people allow themselves to be inconvenienced instead of putting some money down if you don't have a credit card and using EZ Pass. I've read that a portion of these people may not want themselves tracked using their EZ Pass. That only accounts for probably a small minority of those who would rather wait on a cash only toll line for 10 minutes instead of spending 1 minute going through the EZ Pass toll plaza. The logic escapes me.
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