Toll gate

“ That is a little farther, but the road is a great deal better?"
"Oh, let us go that way," cried Olive. "We will go through Uncle John's toll-gate, and you must let me pay the toll. It will be such fun to pay toll to Uncle John, or old Jane."
"Very well," said Mrs. Easterfield, "we will go that way."
When the horses had passed through Glenford and had turned their heads homeward, they clattered along at a fine rate over the smooth turnpike, and Olive was in as high spirits as they were.
"Whoever comes out to take toll," said she, "I intend to be treated as an ordinary traveler and nothing else. ”

“ Before railways had come, to clear the roads of most of the cattle and the waggons, the income 90of this toll-gate was considerable, but in these days it is not worth the while of the owner of these petty rights to collect the small gains, and the toll-house has been let as an ordinary cottage, but, in consideration of the tolls, at a rent slightly above its value as a dwelling. ”

“ One gate may be located every ten miles, so the law provides, and you are sure to find them if you travel ten miles on any road. Some fellow has said that all roads lead to Rome, but in this country all roads lead to turnpikes. It was a delightful conceit of old Tony’s, but if I wanted to reach the seventh heaven of revenge I’d hunt out a location on any road five miles from a toll-gate and open a house of entertainment for man and beast. The entertainment for the beast would be a mere poetic license, a sort of wild fancy, and consist of illimitable acres of rocks and pine brush ”

“ The Select Committee of 1819 reported that in the three preceding Sessions ninety turnpike trusts, seeking renewal of their Acts, had asked for authority to increase their tolls on the ground that they could not pay their debts without the assistance of Parliament. The alternative to an increase of tolls was carried so far that it became customary for the trusts to set up a toll-gate wherever there was the slightest excuse for so doing. ”

“ When they stopped at the toll-gate Captain Asher came down to collect the toll—ten cents for two horses and a carriage. Olive was sitting in the little arbor, reading. She had noticed the approaching equipage and saw that there was a lady in it, but for some reason or other she was not so anxious as she had been to collect toll from ladies. If she could have arranged the matter to suit herself she would have taken toll from the male travelers, and her Uncle John might attend to the women; she did not believe that men would have such absurd ideas about people or ask ridiculous questions. ”

“ A toll was established to defray expenses, but on account of many not being able to pay the two dollar and a half toll, the road was operated at a financial loss. Albert Gaines, Mr. Barlow's son-in-law, was the first toll-gate keeper. However, its importance to emigrants made it necessary to keep the road open. One hundred and fortyfive wagons, bringing approximately a thousand people and many droves of cattle and horses arrived by this route in 1846, and the number increased year by year. ”

“ And be it further enacted, That when and so soon as the said turnpike road shall be completed from Georgetown in the district of Columbia to Montgomery Courthouse, in the state of Maryland, it shall and may be lawful for the said president and managers of said company, to erect a toll gate on this side of, and near to Tennallytown, and there to demand and receive such tolls, and on such terms and conditions as by the law of the state of Maryland they are authorized to demand and receive, at any toll gate erected on said road within the limits of the state of Maryland. ”

“ The proof lies in the fact, well-known to those who were adult in the early days of railways, that in the office or waiting-room of every railway-station was fixed up a table of tolls, like that which was fixed up at every toll-gate ”

“ Was he also in the navy?"
"No," said Olive, "he was in the merchant service, and has retired. It seems queer that he should be keeping a toll-gate, but my father has often told me that Uncle John does not care for appearances, and likes to do things that please him. He likes to keep the tollhouse because it brings him in touch with the world."
"Very sensible in him," said Mrs. Easterfield. "I think I would like to keep a toll-gate myself."
Captain Asher had seen the carriage stop, and knew that Mrs. ”

“ A driver receives a card as he enters and surrenders it when leaving, and the toll paid is based on the distance traveled on the turnpike. On the Garden State Parkway, tolls of a fixed amount are collected at each of a series of toll gates, or “barriers,” through which all traffic passes. Thus drivers who both enter and leave the parkway at interchanges between adjacent barriers pay no toll. Drivers passing a barrier pay the fixed fee regardless of where they enter, and drivers traversing a considerable length of the parkway pay tolls at each of a series of barriers. ”

“ It has gone because the road-traffic has grown with the suburbs and the way was not wide enough; but its disappearance removes a landmark proclaiming where town and country met.
The making of the Archway and the road was no public-spirited act, but the commercial undertaking of a Company, whose total expenses were very large, and, by consequence, the tolls exacted extremely high. Pedestrians were not chargeable at ordinary toll-gates, but here they had to pay a penny, or go the tedious way over the Hill. Sixpence was levied on every laden or draught horse. ”

“ The matter was precipitated in 1822, when a bill was presented to the House and Senate providing that toll-gates be erected and that the Government should charge travellers for the use of the road. The bill passed both branches of Congress, but it was vetoed immediately by President Monroe on the ground that the national Government could not collect toll unless, as sovereign, it owned the ground that the road occupied. ”

“ The town is completely surrounded by toll-gates; the tolls collected do not go to pay for the maintenance of the roads, but to defray a debt incurred by removing buildings, including the ancient shambles, from the middle of the street early in the century. ”

“ The right to demand toll, and to stop and punish passengers for refusing to pay it, is emphatically a sovereign right, and has ever been so considered amongst civilized nations. The power to erect toll-gates necessarily implies, 1st, The stoppage of the passenger until he shall pay the toll; 2d, His trial and punishment, if he should, either by force or by fraud, evade, or attempt to evade, its payment; 3d, A discretionary power as to the amount of toll; 4th, The trial and punishment of persons who may wilfully injure the road, or violate the police established upon it. ”

“ A consideration of the ability of people to pay tolls, as indicated by the distribution of automobile owners by income groups, and further consideration of actual fees which would be charged for specific trips over various sections of the routes, led to the conclusion that not more than about one-third of the vehicles that might use a typical free road of limited access could be regarded as potential traffic for the same road operated as a toll facility. ”

“ On the following night a crowd bored holes in the gates at Don John's Cross, a mile from Bristol, blew up the gates with gunpowder, and destroyed the toll-house. Cross-bars and posts were erected next day, in place of the gates, and the turnpike commissioners took it in turns to enforce payment of the tolls. At night "a prodigious body of Somersetshire people," armed with various instruments of destruction, and some of them disguised in women's clothes, went along the roads to an accompaniment of drum-beating and much shouting, demolished the turnpikes, and pulled down the toll-houses. ”

“ But, it is asserted that resort to the toll expedient is the only way to get needed high-type facilities quickly; it is the only feasible way, it is said, to raise the necessarily large cost. Now, of course, the places where the most expensive new facilities are needed most quickly, namely, within and in the near vicinity of cities, are the very places where it becomes utterly impracticable to employ the toll method. ”

“ It will be seen that the taxation of a railway line—as distinct from that of railway buildings—is, to all intents and purposes, the enforcement of a toll, on all traffic carried, for the privilege of passing through the parish concerned; while there is no suggestion, as there was in the case of turnpike roads, that those who collect the toll confer an advantage on those by whom the toll is paid. ”

“ Pikes were not used, or needed on the National Road. It was always kept in good condition, and travelers thereon, as a rule, paid the required toll without complaining. At distances of fifteen miles, on the average, houses were erected for toll collectors to dwell in, and strong iron gates, hung to massive iron posts, were established to enforce the payment of toll in cases of necessity. These toll houses were of uniform size, angular and round, west of the mountains constructed of brick, and through the mountains, of stone, except the one six miles west of Cumberland, which is of brick. ”

“ The sun rolls blazing through the sky, and cannot find a cloud to cool his face with. The horses toil sluggishly along the bridge, and heave their glistening sides in short quick pantings, when the reins are tightened at the toll-house. ”

“ Even in the particular instances in which traffic can be attracted to toll highways sufficient in volume to repay the costs of financing, construction and operation, we regard the toll device as an inadvisable and expensive expedient. ”

“ When, however, the tolls have repaid with interest the whole of the expenditure, the road or bridge should be thrown open free of toll, that it may be used also by those to whom, unless open gratuitously, it would be valueless ”

“ A city may levy reasonable tolls in a market established by itself. A shunpike, or road constructed to facilitate evasion of tolls on a turnpike road, may be closed by injunction. The question of tolls was at one time an important one in international law. ”

“ The amount of the tolls varied according to the trusts or the locality. Kearsley Fowler says that in Aylesbury for a horse ridden or led, passing through the gates, the toll was 11⁄2d.; for a vehicle drawn by one horse, 41⁄2d.; for a carriage and pair, 9d., and so on. The tolls, he adds, fell with particular hardship on farmers, and became a tax on their trade. When sending away their corn or other produce with a waggon and four horses they paid, in some instances, 1s. 6d. or 2s. 3d. If, as often occurred, the waggon passed through two gates in eight or nine miles, the payments came to 3s. ”

“ On the basis of this further study various factors, ranging from 0.167 to 0.40, were decided upon for application to the estimated free-facility traffic to convert it to an estimate of traffic on the toll facility. In densely populated areas, where highway congestion in considerable degree has already been experienced and where there are relatively large numbers of potential users who are able to pay tolls, factors as high as 0.40 were used. ”

“ It must bear the large cost of toll collection. It is commonly, and almost necessarily financed with revenue bonds at interest rates inevitably higher than the rates the public would have to pay for money borrowed to create an identical free facility. It has been stated above that the standard of alternate free roads must be kept depressed for protection of the investment in a toll road. ”

“ To the rising generation, to whom tollgates are almost unknown, a study of the toll system affords novel entertainment, helping one to realize something of one of the most serious questions of public economics of two generations ago. Tollgates averaged one in eighteen or twenty miles in Pennsylvania, and one in ten miles in Ohio, with tolls a little higher than half the rate in Pennsylvania. ”

“ This difference is caused by the fact that the more money people spend for tolls, the less they have left to spend for operation of their vehicles. However, this rate of increase should be greater for the selected routes, operated on either a free or toll basis, than the rate of increase for main highways, because the long trips, which tend to increase in number faster than short ones, form a larger percentage of the traffic on limited-access roads than on normal main highways. ”

“ With regard to inferior commodities as well as those which are to be let off free of toll, the amount of toll due shall be determined after careful consideration.
Those merchants who pass beyond the flag of the toll-house without paying the toll shall be fined eight times the amount of the toll due from them. ”

“ Plate 33.—A two-lane road widened to four lanes approaching an access point at which only one toll booth is provided, showing the grade-separating structure necessary to avoid hazards of left turns on the toll road. lanes would be provided, clear of the normal traffic lanes, to permit traffic to slow down before entering the access drive and to pick up speed before weaving into the high-speed traffic stream on the toll road. Access drives would lead by easy grades and curves past the toll booths which would be visible from the toll road and the intersecting road. ”

“ Variety and number of tolls.—The variety of feudal tolls is almost inconceivable. Attempts by scholars to classify them as we should modern fees and taxes are useless, because no principle underlay the system. A French scholar has made a list of seventeen different kinds of tolls, but this is rough and incomplete. We can say in general that tolls were levied everywhere and on everything. Even a jongleur, the equivalent58 to the modern organ-grinder, could not pass the gates of Paris without making his monkey show off to pay his own way. A man had to pay toll not only when he went over a bridge ”