me and bridges
Dec. 3rd, 2014 06:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacIn my previous post, on technological change, I wrote: "Before about 1970, toll bridges in the Bay Area charged tolls in both directions, until some genius realized you could make nearly the same amount of money at half the cost by charging twice as much in only one direction." I'd like to expand on that further, with an emphasis on the nearly.
I live in a waterlogged region with eight toll bridges. Readers from outside the area are going to need a map, and here's one showing all eight, including the oft-forgotten Antioch Bridge (forgotten because it leads from the sizable town of Antioch to ... nowhere in particular, just back highways wandering around the Delta farmlands). The four bridges that cross the Bay (running down the middle) charge tolls westbound, the three that cross the Sacramento River (across the top) charge northbound, and the Golden Gate Bridge charges southbound.
Despite this profusion of bridges, however, I rarely need to cross any, and even more rarely in the toll direction. This is because I live at the base of the Peninsula (just off the bottom of the map, directly below the label for the Dumbarton Bridge), and can get anywhere up to San Francisco or in the East Bay without crossing any bridges. And when I travel to Marin or points north (where I go maybe once a year, if that), I go up on the Golden Gate Bridge and back on the Richmond, and pay no tolls at all, because the trip is much the same in time by either route. Crafty penny-pinching, no? The only times I have to pay a toll are when I'm going to Napa or Solano or further north that way (admittedly more often than I used to, now that B's family is migrating up there - one could theoretically go around, but that'd be enormously time-consuming) or when a single trip involves errands in both the East Bay or Marin and San Francisco that have to be done in that order, sometimes involving giving a friend a ride.
I'd say I pay toll maybe 3 or 4 times a year. Mostly on Carquinez or Benicia, sometimes on the Bay Bridge, though I've gone tollwise on all 8 at one time or another. (At Antioch it was to complete my collection: I had no other reason to cross that bridge, or even to go to Antioch.) Consequently I haven't bothered to acquire one of those devices which let you pay electronically and avoid the toll booths. (There are no toll roads here, though there are some electronic-only toll commuter lanes, but since I don't commute, I don't need those either.) Not even since the Golden Gate Bridge went electronic-only. One day I did attend an afternoon event in Marin and an evening concert in the City, so I went to the web site and paid in advance (worked fine), but the previous time I'd gone tollwise on the Golden Gate was like 20 years earlier, so that's not going to happen often either.
When all the bridges go all-electronic, which they're threatening to do in a few years, I'll probably decide that keeping a device loaded is less trouble than repeated visits to the web sites for my frequency of use, but until then I'm not worrying about it.
I live in a waterlogged region with eight toll bridges. Readers from outside the area are going to need a map, and here's one showing all eight, including the oft-forgotten Antioch Bridge (forgotten because it leads from the sizable town of Antioch to ... nowhere in particular, just back highways wandering around the Delta farmlands). The four bridges that cross the Bay (running down the middle) charge tolls westbound, the three that cross the Sacramento River (across the top) charge northbound, and the Golden Gate Bridge charges southbound.Despite this profusion of bridges, however, I rarely need to cross any, and even more rarely in the toll direction. This is because I live at the base of the Peninsula (just off the bottom of the map, directly below the label for the Dumbarton Bridge), and can get anywhere up to San Francisco or in the East Bay without crossing any bridges. And when I travel to Marin or points north (where I go maybe once a year, if that), I go up on the Golden Gate Bridge and back on the Richmond, and pay no tolls at all, because the trip is much the same in time by either route. Crafty penny-pinching, no? The only times I have to pay a toll are when I'm going to Napa or Solano or further north that way (admittedly more often than I used to, now that B's family is migrating up there - one could theoretically go around, but that'd be enormously time-consuming) or when a single trip involves errands in both the East Bay or Marin and San Francisco that have to be done in that order, sometimes involving giving a friend a ride.
I'd say I pay toll maybe 3 or 4 times a year. Mostly on Carquinez or Benicia, sometimes on the Bay Bridge, though I've gone tollwise on all 8 at one time or another. (At Antioch it was to complete my collection: I had no other reason to cross that bridge, or even to go to Antioch.) Consequently I haven't bothered to acquire one of those devices which let you pay electronically and avoid the toll booths. (There are no toll roads here, though there are some electronic-only toll commuter lanes, but since I don't commute, I don't need those either.) Not even since the Golden Gate Bridge went electronic-only. One day I did attend an afternoon event in Marin and an evening concert in the City, so I went to the web site and paid in advance (worked fine), but the previous time I'd gone tollwise on the Golden Gate was like 20 years earlier, so that's not going to happen often either.
When all the bridges go all-electronic, which they're threatening to do in a few years, I'll probably decide that keeping a device loaded is less trouble than repeated visits to the web sites for my frequency of use, but until then I'm not worrying about it.
