Here’s a gallery we should all have a relationship with, tollbooths. One about which I’ll admit I’ve conflicted feelings. After all, looking at the Golden Gate tollbooths just brings many memories, as the location never changed much. How not feel a kinship to the past?
Of course, followed by the logical: Wait, how many hours did I spend stuck there? (Many!) So, I’m not sure if I would qualify those hours as quality time with my car. On the other hand, a good time to check out the rides around me, probably what I enjoyed the most during those idle minutes.
Now, the prettiest shot of these is the one below, always around the Golden Gate parking lot, with a nice view of the toll booths. Last, most of the other images have legible signage or landmarks, so not much need to ID locations.
Top shot – the older I get the more I love the 64 Galaxie 4 door hardtops.
Only a very small number of Export RHD 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 four door pillarless hardtops made it Australia. They were stunning cars and the 4 door hardtop styling looked so much better than any of the more common 2 door hardtops.
I like driving, but I hate commuting. Retiring means the burden of getting up early and dealing with the commute is gone. Kind of odd that when I do get in traffic now I don’t mind it so much. Today at least in the Bay Area you just drive thru and they send you a bill. Then again it’s something like $8
Or you just get a Fastrak transponder and stick it to your windshield. They’re also good for using the express lanes on the freeway too.
Yes, but those things have a time limit, and I just don’t go thru the toll gates that often.
$8 for commute hours while all other times it is $7. Have a bill right here for the Bay Bridge on Saturday for $7.
That shot of the Golden Gate toll booth sure triggers memories. I had two different houses when I lived there. The 1st was Fort Barry on the Sausalito side. I had to cross the bridge every day to get to work on the Presidio. The Army gave us bridge tickets so my commute was free.
As the family grew, we got moved to a bigger house on the Presidio side. Moving some stuff to the new house, a gust of wind blew the kids’ plastic tree house out of the back of my pickup and into traffic. The toll booth attendant said not to worry. It happened a lot and they’d send a truck to retrieve it. They delivered the crushed remains about an hour later.
Our new house on the Presidio was on Pilot’s Row. I now longer had to commute through the toll booth, but now I could see it from the front porch. My wife had her hands full keeping the older kids from wandering across the street to check out all the tourist activity.
That was the best Army housing ever. Of course, the view of the toll booth was not the attraction. The view of the Golden Gate Bridge was. I understand the Park Service now rents these houses out for about $6k+/month. I couldn’t afford to live there today.
Like this
That’s it. Pilot’s row. The view is from the backyards. Lincoln Blvd. ran in front of the houses.
Pilot’s Row. 900’s housing tract. Nice duplexes for sure. I used to be one of those that maintained the grounds around that housing, including mowing those ridiculous 40-degree slopes on the Lincoln side with push mowers. Definitely the closest view of any housing to the Golden Gate Bridge. The housing has been under control of the Presidio Trust (not National Park Service) for almost 25 years now.
Growing up, never heard of any toll roads or bridges in Ontario, until seeing them on US television in the mid ’70s. The US-operated Thousand Islands Bridge (1938) at Alexandria Bay, New York, and Ivy Lea, Ontario, was the first time I saw a toll bridge, and booth, circa 1977. As the bridge is located in a tourist region, overwhelmingly car, and RV traffic, then.
I remember the time when the Laurentian Autoroute (A-15), North Shore Autoroute (A-40), Chomedey Autoroute (A-13) and Eastern Townships Autoroute (A-10) have once toll boots.
Here a picture of a former toll booth where A-10 meet QC-227 near Marieville.
https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/3163994 and others near Chambly and Magog.
https://journallemonteregien.com/qui-se-souvient-du-poste-de-peage-routier-de-chambly/
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php/?story_fbid=1582627335271022&id=207295232804246
My sister-in-law was rear ended at the toll both on the Laurentian Autoroute. She was OK but her MGB was totalled. I guess that the person who hit her was not planning on paying the toll.
The only one I remember was the Burlington Skyway. My family went over it when it opened in 1958 and I saw my first 1958 Olds on the bridge. I think the Olds impressed me more than the bridge. According to Wikipedia the tolls were taken off in 1973.
I recall one tollbooth that was actually *removed* when the bonds it awas funding, was paid off.
Around 1965, in Westchester County, NY, the Hutchinson River Pkwy. removed the toll station in Rye.
It was only a quarter or a dime, and it meant no more searching my mom’s purse for change as we approached.
When the Coronado Bridge connecting San Diego to Coronado was paid off, the toll booths went away. Construction started on the bridge in February 1967; the bridge opened to traffic in August 1969. Tolls ceased to be collected in 2002.
My father’s office was directly under the bridge when it was being built. When they sprayed the bridge metal with blue paint they managed to get overspray on hundreds of cars under the bridge without warning. My 68 Cougar was one of them and the state had to pay for all of them to be cleaned and detailed.
I do believe that I’ve been through every single one of those toll booths, or if not the specific booth (e.g., the NY State Thruway one…which entry of dozens?), then the bridge or tollway that they served.
Nearly everything about toll booths fascinated me right up until the time that they pretty much disappeared. As a kid, I loved seeing the toll collectors, getting a good look at traffic in adjacent lanes (when inevitably you’d creep along in the toll booth lanes), and of course pitching the coins (or tokens!) into the big chutes on the “exact change” lanes.
While I do accept the fact that transponder technology is “better” so far as keeping the traffic moving (and all of the inherent benefits of that versus idling in traffic at tolls), I still wonder what happened to all of the workers who used to collect the tolls. I do hope they all have better jobs now in the “knowledge economy”.
One thing I used to get some satisfaction out of was choosing the “quickest” toll booth lane. Usually these were on the far right end, since most drivers preferred to use the toll booths that didn’t require much changing lanes. Correctly choosing the quickest lane gave you the satisfaction of beating the clock.
Transponder technology may be better, but I’ve gotten several toll charges for roads in Virginia that I’ve never driven on. They’re always for a car with a similar license plate. Fortunately, I’ve been able to call the toll company and explain what happened, but that takes a lot of time, and once it didn’t work, so I get a threatening “overdue” notice later on. Very annoying.
Sounds like “Trans Urban”.
Actually they were all for tolls roads or bridges in the Hampton Roads area. Transurban probably wouldn’t have voided those bills. Private toll road companies have a bad reputation for ripping people off, and Transurban is probably the worst.
I’ll have to throw one in there. I first crossed in the summer of 1972 which is pretty close to this picture. While having only been through the GGB toll plaza maybe two dozen times prior to 1998 I have been across the Bay Bridge hundreds of times.
I don’t recall toll booth appearance changing much until the relatively recent adoption of electronic payments. Here in Maryland (and nearby states and DC) they use a wireless EZ-Pass thing you stick to your windshield, and you drive through the toll booths barely slowing down (they still have a few lanes in some places for cash payments). The newest toll road in the area, MD 200 a.k.a. the Intercounty Connector or ICC, doesn’t even have toll booths. You drive by an EZ-Pass reader that you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t looking for it, at full speed. If you don’t have an EZ-Pass, it snaps your license tag and mails a bill to the registered owner with an extra surcharge for not having an EZ-Pass.
Here in the Northeast the actual toll plazas have mostly been torn down. It is no longer possible to pay for tolls here in Massachusetts with cash. You either have the transponder, or you have your plate photographed as you whizz through the data collector thingies on the highway and then pay the bill that you will receive in the mail. New Hampshire hasn’t yet adopted entirely cash-free tolling, so there are still some toll plazas there.
I grew up I southeastern Wisconsin and went to Cubs games on the toll road. I-94. I remember at least 2 maybe 3 toll booths. My dad would let me throw the coins into the big basket. I would try to get as close to the center slot. This was around 1969 thru 1975. Good times!!!!
The last one showing a toll plaza of the NYS Thruway looks like it was taken in the early 1970s because I’m not sure but I think the wagon might be a 1971-72 Plymouth Satellite.
One vehicle parked at Exit 29 on the New York State Thruway which is located in Podunk Canajoharie. Too bad they didn’t have any pictures of the Cimpanzee Bridge toll booth with more than dozen vehicle toll booth.
In the second picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, you can just see the edge of a brown roofline, on the far right above the green and white ‘56 (?) Ford. That’s the Roundhouse, which I think is now a coffee shop but used to be more like a diner. It was a HUGE treat to go there when I was a kid. By the way, in the San Francisco Bay Area until the recent advent of the “Lexus Lanes” where you pay with your transponder to use the carpool lanes as a solo driver, the only tollways were the bridges. And several decades before the transponders came along (which as other people commented, are now the only way to pay tolls other than billing to the registered address based on license plate cameras) the big change was unidirectional tolls. Basically, the tolls doubled to enter or go towards San Francisco, and became free heading out of town. But it was a while before the toll booths were removed in the free direction. But at least traffic didn’t have to stop.
Growing up in New England, I vividly remember getting on the Mass Pike, when you got on they would give you a punch card, The card would have a hole punched in it at the exit number you entered the pike. You looked at where you wanted to exit and the card would tell what you owed . This was the norm until the transponder came around.
My favorite remains the Merritt Parkway tollbooths, installed in 1940 and unchanged until they were removed in 1988. Got to use them right at the end.
The fourth picture is of the Mackinac Bridge; as so often happens, it’s a little less quaint today.
all 1,100 toll collectors — 200 full-time, 900 part-time — will move on to a new chapter when their jobs are formally eliminated. A third of the full-timers have retired; the rest will take new jobs with the state or look elsewhere. https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/albany/2020/11/13/new-york-thruway-cashless-tolling-brings-end-toll-collectors/3761378001/
Boy, I got a double bonus GAMBIT this morning! That shot of the New Jersey Turnpike with that glorious Trailways PD-4104 coach bus. It took me as close as possible to the summer of ’61 or ’62 era, and maybe even the exact year back to a trip I took with my Grandmother to New York City via Trailways FIVE STAR LUXURY SERVICE EXPRESS!!! I was reminiscing about it just the other day. ,6-7 years old at the time. There are so many reverse deja vu coincidences and details in that one photo…WOW!. it’s eerily scary even. Then here’s the GAMBIT: The Norfolk/ Virginia Beach Expressway shot is a bullseye on the area I grew up in, Navy military family days, same era/years. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel was brand new! Everything comes back as clearly as yesterday! Let’s go to Carroll’s for a burger; shall we? If I hadn’t posted these comments today, I would have had to pinch myself to be sure I was still alive! I’m a first or maybe second time poster. This site is SOOOO COOL!!!? 😎
Crossing the Champlain Bridge in Montreal in 1965 for the first time, I threw my quarter in the basket but it did not go into the machine hole and so I had a red light. So I got out if the car to make sure it went in for me to get a green light. When I saw a lot of quarters that had not gone down the hole I never bothered again.
I know! The whole moral dilemma around what to do when the coins missed the basket or when there was some other reason why your toll didn’t register was rather confounding to me (and my parents before me).
The signs explicitly said NOT to get out of the car but rather to “wait” for the attendant…but who the heck wanted to do that as traffic behind started to honk (and of course the likelihood of a human being showing up to “attend” to a miss-fed dime or quarter was unlikely). But…driving off once the bell and the red light started going off was certainly anxiety-producing. Then again, how likely was it that a state trooper would take off after you to recoup the state’s 25 cents? The whole set of questions was paralyzing.
Transponders are much better.
I too remember the toll booths on the Mass Pike, the drivers were always pissed off at needing to slow way down to pitch in their quarters .
-Nate
Crossing the Bay Bridge, in 1972, the toll was 0.75 cents. Now think about that for a moment? How many people do you think handed over exactly 0.75 cents? Now think how many handed over 0.75 cents in just quarters? Then there are those who handed over a $5 bill, $10 bill, and sometimes $20 bill. Most of the time I handed over a $1 bill. Toll takers were always making change. In fact they expected as if you looked inside the booth you could see that they arranged dollar bills for change in order and folded. They could then pull out $4.25 in change, $9.25 in change and $19.25 in change. Now imagine the commute hour or two back then? All this took time. Finally they went to an even $1.
That first picture looks just like the famly car ! 1963 galaxy 500 2 door town and country
MKH779 black plate
While moving from the Deep South to upstate New York for my final years of work, I was advised on my first day in the office to get a E Z Pass that was valid for most of the north east and certain parts of the mid west. Once I retired, I forgot all about the toll tag till I found it in some paperwork in my retirement home years later.
Since I now visit Florida often, I got hold a a combo Florida Sun Pass/ E Z Pass. So nice to just zip thru the express lanes of the toll booths.
Allow me to show my age. Connecticut 15 became an express road in the southwestern portion of Connecticut when it was open at the four-lane Merritt Parkway. The mentality of the engineers who designed this road was that this parkway was a road for leisure travel. The attached photo exemplifies this, and I remember participating in giving the toll to the toll receiver. To wit, at each toll barrier, one could choose for the driver to pay the toll or the front passenger! The toll booths were one for two lanes. You pulled up to the right or left of the toll booth. Needless to say, this became a real problem, especially when the Merritt Parkway became a busy commuter route. Today we can be thankful for overhead gantries to read from pods that we attach to our windshields – that is, if we must pay tolls along with road tax on our fuel. In Connecticut, where I do not live, motorists stillpay a yearly ownership tax on their vehicles.