Posted on 04/16/2009 4:52:56 PM PDT by cmj328
Some Mass Pike commuters smell a rat, accusing toll road bosses of purposely creating nightmare holiday traffic jams to sell Fast Lane transponders and pump up a proposed 19-cent gas tax hike.
Thousands of motorists were left to stew in traffic Friday, Saturday and especially Sunday after toll takers called in sick, leaving limited cash lanes open.
One driver told the Herald even a rattled toll collector was cooking up conspiracy theories while dealing with the mess.
“ ‘Do you have a cell phone?’ ” a toll taker asked the driver, according to his e-mail to the Herald.“He told me to call the Mass Pike number to complain. He was adamant that the Turnpike authorities were doing this on purpose.”
State Sen. Richard Tisei (R-Wakefield) also accused Pike leaders of orchestrating the crisis to drum up support for the gas-tax hike.
“They’re trying to make people suffer,” Tisei said. “They’re miscalculating, because the angrier people get, they’re going to demand change and it won’t be a tax increase.”
But Pike executive director Alan LeBovidge insisted there was no method behind last weekend’s gridlock madness.
Said LeBovidge: “It was not rehearsed, it was not Machiavellian, it was not a setup.”
I hate those easy pass lanes...
If I had my way, I'd triple the cash toll or even ban cash tolls altogether to get rid of toll collectors (and their Democrat-supporting union) altogether.
People outside of our region read this story, thinking that toll takers must be low-wage, entry-level workers, as they are in many places. Little do they know that being a toll-taker on the Mass Pike is a plumb job, obtained through patronage, and paying an average salary of over $70,000 a year. You read that right. There are toll collectors in Massachusetts earning well into six figures for the privilege of collecting cash and making change. Plus, they can retire after only 20 years with a pension equal to their salary. Beats life in the private sector, eh?
Why do people even live in Commiechusetts?
\ This reminds me of the scorpion and the tortise. LeBovidge being the Scorpion...
Left in ‘96 and am so much the happier for it. Going back “home” over the years (from Florida and Texas) has felt like going to another country.
So Sad
Take the Rush route on this. Instead of wishing for a tax increase on others, how about a DISCOUNT rate for the cars that have the transponder?
And LeBovidge promises the same show for Memorial Day.
And he still has a job!
Lol.. I always imagines it as, “MassOf2sh!ts”... (Kerry and his buddy).
Bikk
Good one!
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