"jim rozen" wrote in message
...
In article , D Murphy says...

Eventually they realized they were only making enough money to
pay for staffing the toll plazas, and maintainting them. So they
finally got smart and tore them out, and stopped collecting the
tolls. They were only supposed to be "until the highway is
paid for" but of course the tolls lingered on for decades after
that.

As I remember it the real driving force behind getting rid of the tolls in
CT. was a horrible crash and fire at a toll plaza (Stratford maybe?). I
don't remember the details clearly but it involved a big rig whose driver
fell asleep and plowed into the cars waiting to pay the toll full tilt.
Something like twelve people were killed including a bunch of little kids
that were in a station wagon.

Stamford? I recall that being the last straw, somebody finally woke
up and said, 'enough.'

Jim

The whole toll collection system is a terribly inefficient and wasteful way
to collect revenue. Aside from the cost of operating the system, the
increased fuel usage, air pollution, wasted time and traffic accidents, as
illustrated above, make it a socially expensive system as well. The EZ-Pass
is an improvement but will unfortunately probably keep toll collection
alive.