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I've never lived in a state where the tolls were retired and the booths torn down.

I'm not saying it's common, but it does happen. The Denver-Boulder Turnpike, aka US 36, was constructed as a toll road in 1952 and the tollposts were removed when it was paid off in 1967. http://www.aaroads.com/west/us-036_co.html
Similarly, pretty much all the Colorado passes were originally toll roads when they were originally chiseled out from the mountain rock in the 1870's. The only ones that still are, are the two roads that go to 14,000 feet: Pike's Peak and Mount Evans, and the rationale, of having to dig out 8-12 meters of snow on a regular basis, seems fairly sound.

I was (wrongly) thinking that the toll booth belonged to Maryland.
The giant toll money machine in Delaware is the Newark Toll Plaza across the mainline of I-95 (Delaware Turnpike) just inside the Maryland state line.

Come to think of it I believe the plaza is NOT actually just inside Maryland as the above quote above from some article states, but is located within Delaware, being about a mile from the state line.

The only reason I-95 in Delaware has a toll is because JFK and the Delaware Governor of the time didn't get along. Therefore the feds wouldn't pay for construction of 95 between exit 5 and MD state line. (Apparently a similar story for the stretch in Maryland). That is why 95 was allowed to have a toll in that area. Of course, the original highway bonds were paid off long ago. It's just one big cash cow for DelDOT now... - http://www.aaroads.com/delaware/i-095.htm

But it can still all be blamed on Maryland... or Canada :)

Dirt road? Not even close.

NSA has its own clearly signposted parkway exit.

Also, you can look at the NSA HQ on Google Earth or Google Maps. It's at 39 06'35.48"N 76 46'11.44"W.

No dirt roads anywhere.

I was skeptical too. I looked at the wikipedia entry for the NSA, where the NSA headquarters are described. They are in Fort Meade, Maryland, where the NSA has their own exit off the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, marked "NSA Employees Only". From the photo (the second link), there are plenty of trees on both sides of the road, and I don't know how far the building is set back (too lazy to look in Google Earth), but the arrangement does look like the anecdote described by the grandparent might have been possible historically.

One effective way to deal with this is maillist pollution with the Jam the Spammers Maillist Game.

Step 1. Start filling out online registrations (probably something you already avoid) and seek out folks that are looking for this type of marketing data (e.g. Radio Shack, Best Buy).

Step 2. Jam their marketing radar with noise. Noise can be incorrect zip codes for you, creative names and addresses, even brand new people that live in exotic places. For instance, I've always figured that the post office at Manville Wyoming must be quite bored, being in the least populated county of the least populated state. Zip code is 82227, which makes it easy to remember. And best of all, General Delivery helps your mailman by letting him toss the junkmail in a tall pile that can be left for a long time. (For a pretty picture of Wyoming's Niobrara county, see this site.)

Remember, the more garbage you dump into their maillists, the less effective those mail lists are that they're selling.

Looking at an recent maillist quote for my metropolitan area, InfoUSA wants $5,000 for a list of businesses complete with fax, email, etc. Imagine how frustrated list buyers get when they discover half of these leads are garbage. The greater the background noise, the less effective the marketing campaign, and the more likely other means will be sought in locating customers.

Start your jamming!

*scoove*

the danger is not speed, by itself, it's speed differences

An anecdote that plays into this theme:

Just to the east of Mobile, Alabama, Interstate 10 goes over a 10 mile long causeway bridge that spans the northern section of Mobile Bay. A few years ago (roughly 1996, I think, though I can't find a date at the moment), that bridge was the site of what was at the time one of the the biggest pileups in American history, involving around 100-110 cars. Amazingly, only one person died in the accident -- a schoolteacher who's car caught on fire -- but the property damage, to both the cars and to both directions of the bridge itself, was considerable.

The primary cause of the accident was poor visibility due to heavy fog, and huge differences in speed as some drivers continued at normal driving speeds (70 mph or so) while others, nervously, slowed down to 40, 30, or 20 mph. As a result, the "speeding" drivers kept plowing into the slower ones, and a disaster ensued. That disaster wouldn't have happened if everyone either maintained a normal speed, or everyone slowed down; it was the mixture of responses that caused problems.

Interestingly, the initial reason for the 55 MPH federal speed limit had nothing to do with auto safety: it was enacted during the oil crises of the 70s in an effort to conserve fuel. In that regard it was very successful; the fact that it saved lives was just a welcome side effect. Cars are better designed now, and can better protect their passengers in high speed impacts, thus leading to the lower fatality rates today even though average highway speeds are much higher than they were 20 years ago. The fuel efficiency angle hasn't changed though -- we'd still be getting better gas milage on the average if traffic was moving more slowly.

That's because most politicans have looked at transit companies as being the same as any other kind of business. This sort of thing is happening to Amtrak right now. Congress wants Amtrak to lose their subsidies and become "self sufficient" by 2004. Like they are going to be able to do that without cutting back service even further.

Imagine if some senator said the same thing about the interstate highway system, or tried to remove the programs that keep gasoline so cheap. Every road funded only by it's own tolls and gas at the world average of $4.50 per gallon would certainly make transit look like a bargain!

Oh no! Paying taxes into transit is an evil, anti-free-market socialist subsidy. Propping up cheap gas and paving evermore countryside, why that's good for EVERYONE!

Don't get me started on "Interstate" 99 (The Bud Shuster Porkway).