For Whom the Booth Tolls

Dallas is a sprawling city with an abundance of intersecting highways. A disturbing number of these highways require tolls. I am vaguely familiar with toll roads from crossing the country, but Dallas is the first place I've experienced that requires a fee to travel within the city limits.


I could provide fair, balanced analysis and mention the arguments in favor of the tolls, but I won't. Instead, I'll summarize the Dallas toll system with a simple yet fundamentally sound point: It sucks.

I traveled ten miles...TEN MILES!...and was stopped not once, but twice by toll booths asking for one dollar a piece. As if gas prices weren't rough enough, paying two dollars to go ten miles is asinine.

Fortunately, I discovered that my GPS system contains a function that allows me to avoid tolls when going somewhere. I had to go out of my way, and probably split the difference in gas money used, but as long as my money isn't going to the city of Dallas for their insane toll system, I'm happy.

Dallas residents aren't slowed down by the tolls, because they pay for EZ Pass, which still requires a fee but allows unfettered access past the tolls. A local I talked to estimated that she spends roughly sixty dollars a month for EZ Pass. Sixty dollars a month!

I can not in good conscience support this madness, so I am hereby adding "toll booths" to my growing list of items that are definitively not the meaning of life.

The case against toll booths:

+ They provide jobs, but not jobs any sane person would want. Any monetary compensation for otherwised unemployed people is easily counteracted by the inevitable depression that comes from sitting in an enclosed space for hours on end, doing a mindless task for a large group of people united only in their disdain for you.

+ Nobody is happy to pay a toll. This makes for an increased number of pissed off drivers on the road, which is never a good thing.

+ If you don't know they're coming, you risk the possibility of not having the correct change and then choosing between a) slowing down traffic while you search your seats and glove compartment or b) breaking the law and risking a ridiculous fine.

+ They bring a negative association to your city for visiting tourists. I now resent Dallas for more than its football team.

+ They're tacky and I hate them. Just saying.

The case for toll booths:

+ They provided inspiration for a character on an Adam Sandler comedy cd.

Yeah. That's pretty much it.