1971 Chrysler Newport, Maine Turnpike

We drove from Maine to Cambridge on Labor Day. Temps in the 90s, and beaucoup traffic on the road--not all of it as interesting, fleet, and handsome as this Newport. We, and about a million other people, wasted an hour in the thickened slog through the Maine and New Hampshire tolls. The real toll paid by citizens/drivers/taxpayers is not the bucks handed over but the time wasted in the slow-down  tolls necessarily create, even in this era of EZ-Pass. Over one year there must be millions of people/hours wasted in toll-jams. And when you reckon the environmental and economic cost of excess fuel burnt--not to mention the wear on brakes rotors--tollbooths are something no semi-urban landscape can afford.