Slashdot Mirror
Golden Gate Bridge To Eliminate Tollbooths
Hugh Pickens writes writes "The San Francisco Chronicle reports that tollbooths and toll collectors, a fixture at the Golden Gate Bridge since it opened in 1937, will be eliminated starting in 2012 as the bridge moves to an all-electronic system, cutting 34 jobs and saving $19.2 million over the first eight years. The bridge will move to a toll collection strategy that combines the existing FasTrak system with one that photographs the license plates of cars going through the toll plaza and mails a bill to the registered owners. Other structures and bridges have successfully gone to all-electronic tolls, including the Sydney Harbor Bridge in Australia and the Leeville Bridge in Louisiana, but not everyone is happy with the change. 'This is a world-famous bridge, and you need a human face,' says Philip Hynes. 'You need people in those toll booths to greet people.'"
I'd much rather cruise through tolls without having to stop, and I really have no desire to see these human toll booth operators.
No you don't.
You need to eliminate the 5-minute backup at the toll booth, and thereby save yourself ~2000 hours over a lifetime. You don't need the human face, just as you don't need an operator asking, "Number please?" on the telephone.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Oh, it's tremendous fun to go through an automated toll with a rental car. First the toll authority sends a bill for $1 to the rental company. Then the rental company charges your card (that's still in their system) for $15 based on the fine print in the rental agreement. A run through a lengthy toll road with five or six toll monitors results in individual bills for each one and can get you a bill from the rental company for a hundred or more.
Take a look at Locans and Tourists #3: San Francisco, a map of geotagged photos of San Francisco based on a 'tourist' vs 'resident' heuristic (tourists take photos all at once; residents take them over a period of months). San Francisco is a divided city.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Tracking your every move, inside our coast-to-coast prison.
Your papers, please!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
You misunderstand the reason for toll booths on the golden gate bridge. It's about reducing demand.
By having a toll on the bridge, a certain percentage of the population is going to decide that it's not worth it to cross the bridge, and will plan their trip using an alternate route. This reduces the number of cars crossing and reduces congestion. By implementing a toll, you help insure that there is at least one non-congested (or relatively quick) path by car into the city, so that those who need to get there in a hurry can. If you need to get into the city 15 to 20 minutes faster, the toll is worth it.
With the toll, the bridge is useful to some people (or all people some of the time). Without the toll, the bridge becomes just as congested as any other road, because people choosing between the bridge and the alternative will favor the bridge until congestion makes them indifferent between the two.
You misunderstand the reason for toll booths on the Golden Gate Bridge. It's about revenue.
There ARE no alternate toll-free paths into San Francisco unless you want to add nearly three hours to your drive. They also strategically planned the toll booths so that most people cannot avoid paying a toll by picking and choosing different paths to take and running the toll-free side of a bridge in the morning and the toll-free side of another bridge on their way home. You must not be from the Bay Area, so I'll forgive you, but there simply is no feasible way to bypass the Golden Gate Bridge to get into the city.
What's wrong with hatting the military?
Nothing really. A bit redundant in all, they already have hats. But if you insist....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!