Posted on 11/12/2016 1:03:35 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The Massachusetts Turnpike is in uncharted water as EZ Pass has replaced cash along the state’s turnpike system and many toll collectors have been laid off.
In a world where many systems have gone electronic from payment for movies to parking, it was only a matter of time before the personless, electronic system eventually took over toll roads, as well. Along the Massachusetts Turnpike, it happened this weekend with toll collectors working their last shifts and the state moving quickly to tear down the booths where collections happened for decades.
According to the Boston Globe, the new cashless collections system began on Friday at 10 p.m. and will now be the permanent vehicle for toll collection — and yes, the pun was intentional.
(Excerpt) Read more at inquisitr.com ...
Yep that's a stumper. Maybe you could google for an article about Massachusetts removing all their toll booths. Such an article might have that information.
The toll both collectors in Maine and New Hampshire are friendly whereas the Mass. ones are downright unpleasant.
Soon to be installed on all highways that were never toll roads before. Nothing but a money machine for the state. The MassPike toll booths were supposed to be removed years ago when the original bonds were paid off.
Not likely. If they set it up the way it works in Illinois, you get to wait in line at a tollbooth that is off to the side of the “express” lanes. Love the Illinois system . . . my personal record is 124mph, but I was late on the gas.
My first thought, too. These jobs didn’t get sent overseas and they aren’t coming back. Just another case of tech displacing people in mostly useless, dead-end jobs. I’ve often marveled at the fact they could actually find people willing to sit in a toll booth and collect dirty cash from strangers all the while breathing filthy, horribly polluted air and suffering non-stop noise. What a yuck job.
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a job is a job and all work has meaning. There are plenty of people who need this sort of work and cannot do much more.
Texas has had the EZ Pass system for several years. It works pretty smoothly and if you buy the pass it’s cheaper than paying by the billing system. My daughters car is in my name, so I get billed for hers and pay it online.
one cannot transfer easy pass from car to car.
This has nothing to do with toll collection and everything to do with tracking people in our increasingly totalitarian society.
Genocide will be much easier for our killers than in previous generations. We can always be found.
Maybe they are with going totally cashless. Illinois still uses cash but at double the rates of an Ipass. I390 around O'Hare will be transponder only when the project is complete.
Don’t know how it works in MA, but in North TX anyone travelling one of the toll roads without a TollTag (which is a transponder with a pre-paid account attached,where toll fees are deducted as the driver passes through an electronic toll location) , receives a bill in the mail. This only works for vehicles with in-state license plates. The entity running the North TX toll roads, the North Texas Tollway Authority or NTTA, does not have access to information on out-of-state license tags. In short, those drivers are given a pass as the tolling authority cannot locate them. Just my $0.02 worth.
“a tourist driving through Virginia is supposed to have an Ezpass?”
You need ezpass only to drive on the toll roads. Gravel roads are still free.
Illinois is part of EZPass network. I can add multiple cars to the Ipass transponder. Not sure how it works in other states
Well, they finally kept their promise to take down the toll booths when the bonds were paid off. I’m so happy $40.00 won’t disappear from my checking account every two weeks.
Huh, what’s that you say?
There is great dignity in work, no doubt. I was not denigrating honest work and it is far, far superior to being a layabout welfare leach.
Like Mike Rowe, I just marvel at the tough, thankless, dirty jobs and the fact people ARE willing to do them.
NY needs to do this. Cuomo the elder told us the thruway would eventually be a freeway. HA! Those toll takers are union jobs starting at 45K with complete NYS pension and benefits. Another useless gov’t job.
The thruway roads are crap. What has eight wheels and sleeps five? A DOT truck.
I asked my local do-noting rep, how are you going to mail a bill to the thousands who are using fake plates? Her answer was that they plan to weed those people out. When I inquired if they intended to use the gathered data in law enforcement she backtracked and claimed not to know.
not a problem if they can start out at 25K a year and no fancy pensions. Here in the Peoples Republic of NY, they start out at 45k with full pension and benefits. Meanwhile the roads are still crap and taxes skyrocket every year. Tolls skyrocket as well.
Exactly, i understand many of these jobs are handouts thru elected state political hacks.
You’ll get a bill in the mail with a picture of your license plate.
exactly. now you’ll be charged whenever and wherever they want to hit you with a charge.
what’s to stop them from turning every road into a toll road?
if anyone floats the numbers in front of some city beauracrat ... you better believe he’ll slap a $0.25 toll on the busiest street in the town... by just adding a couple of cameras.
and there’s jack squat you can do about it. pay up or your credit will be ruined.
Rail is a good alternative.
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