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Getting Around:Making the turnpike E-Z-er
Sunday, January 30, 2000 By Joe Grata, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Correction/Clarification: (Published 2/2/2000) Former Allegheny County resident Deborah Carney, who offered tips about toll collections in Joe Grata’s “Getting Around” column Sunday, works at Gateway interchange on the Ohio Turnpike, not the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
If we can't have E-ZPass, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission should at least be trying to make things E-Z-er for us.
But turnpike officials, builders of the nation's first nonstop superhighway, have failed to keep up with their more sophisticated peers when it comes to modern toll road technology and 21st-century amenities that users deserve for the premium prices they pay.
A case in point is toll collection. With today's almost overwhelming traffic volumes, delays at toll booths are frequent, irritating and mostly unnecessary.
Although the turnpike commission announced plans in March 1994 to implement electronic toll collection by 1998 in cooperation with neighboring states, it's still working on a system for just the Philadelphia area.
New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia have passed us. Those states may not carry a fancy Web address on their license plates as Pennsylvania does, but they have the E-ZPass system that eliminates manual transactions involving exchanging money and toll tickets.
E-ZPass uses electronic technology while drivers pass through toll plazas without stopping. Tolls are automatically calculated and then deducted from prepaid or credit card accounts.
In the Pittsburgh area, E-ZPass is still years away. And the turnpike commission has decided to do things the old-fashioned way on the Mon-Fayette Expressway, an all-new, limited-access highway whose first 35 miles are to open in 18 months. Instead of getting modern toll collection, drivers will have to stop, toss their coins into a metal basket and wait for a light to turn green. Wow!
I should have brought the subject up earlier, when Deborah Carney e-mailed me in October, before the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's holiday traffic crunches.
Carney is a former Allegheny County resident now living in Ohio. She's also a collector at Gateway (No. 1) Interchange on the Ohio Turnpike.
Obviously, she doesn't know that turnpike officials are media-control freaks who frown upon employees making public statements. But if they admonish Carney for making excellent suggestions about dealing with the archaic toll collection system, somebody should see to it that they become part of turnpike history.
She e-mailed us "a few things [the turnpike traveler] can do to help speed up traffic backups":
"I enjoy my job very much," she said. "The things I have just mentioned enable me to serve you, the patron, much more efficiently."
Carney's suggestions should be posted at every urinal, toilet, wash basin and checkout counter in every service plaza on the turnpike, where drivers will most likely find them hard to miss.
If drivers cooperated, they could make a modest improvement themselves on the same toll road that introduced magnetically encoded tickets and pioneered devices that classify vehicles based on size, weight and axles as they enter and leave the toll plaza.
Coincidentally, 15 of 17 toll collectors failed to report for work Wednesday morning at the Valley Forge Interchange north of Philadelphia because of illness and snow, creating a seven-mile traffic jam and up to 90-minute waits to pay as little as 85-cent tolls. But even on a good day, the rush-hour wait can be 15 to 20 minutes.
Sexy survey. Last year, Pittsburgh International Airport was ranked No. 3 in the world - and best in the United States - in an airlines passenger survey conducted by Conde Nast Traveler, a leading national travel magazine.
The two airports that did better: Singapore's Changi (No. 1) and Amsterdam's Schipohl (No. 2).
I resurrect the survey because of an e-mail I received implicitly suggest an addition that Pittsburgh might consider to advance in standings where "comfort and ambiance" are among the ratings criteria.
The message included a Reuters news dispatch announcing a Dutch brothel chain's plan to open a branch at Schipohl Airport this year to cater to stressed travelers.
"Passengers will be treated to a luxury welcome with champagne and caviar and can opt for a relaxing massage," brothel spokesman Theo Heuft told Reuters. He said the Yam Yum Caviar Club would target people with extra time between flights or those wanting to unwind after stressful flights.
Prostitution was illegal but overlooked until October, when it was formally legalized in Amsterdam, notorious for its sex industry.
I've been at Schipohl Airport a half-dozen times, but not since 1995, when casino gambling was introduced. I've never been to Changi Airport, but I'll bet 10 Dutch guilders that it has no "working girls."
The e-mailer who passed along the information about Schipohl Airport observed: "First, a casino. Now [a brothel]. How can Pitt's airport compete with that?"
Fact. There's a new - and long-awaited - biking-hiking bridge over the Youghiogheny River in Ohiopyle. The seven-span "bowstring" truss bridge is 621 feet long, made of weathered steel to blend with the landscape and officially opened Oct. 29, in case you haven't been there since summer. - Allegheny Trail Alliance.
Plate du jour. I spotted this Pennsylvania license plate on a Ford Escort crossing the Smithfield Street Bridge Jan. 17: GET MUVN. He needs to send that message to the slowpokes who drive in the left lane on Interstates 70, 79, 80 and the turnpike.
Send your transportation questions, complaints and suggestions to Joe Grata c/o The Post-Gazette or e-mail him at jgrata@post-gazette.com. Please include your address and phone number for confirmation.
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