North East Toll Roads

[scouserl41]

We are currently in Maryland and just yesterday were reminded about the cost of tolls on the many bridges and turnpikes in the North East corridor.

​PLEASE set your GPS to avoid toll roads when you're heading for Vermont.

On a fairly minor road yesterday there was a toll for the bridge across the Susquehanna River that we couldn't avoid and it was $24 for the rig and toad.

Tolls get expensive and are very frequent so be aware, and be prepared.

(Oh and bring your mosquito repellant too you're going to need it!)

BnB

See you in Vermont.

[docj]

 

On a fairly minor road yesterday there was a toll for the bridge across the Susquehanna River that we couldn't avoid and it was $24 for the rig and toad.

 

 

I hate to tell you this but you did this to yourselves by avoiding the tolls on I-95. The folks who work for the State DOT aren't stupid so they charge the exact same toll to cross the Susquehanna on US 40 as they do for the entirety of the toll portion of I-95. If they didn't do this truck traffic trying to reduce their tolls would quickly overwhelm the old bridge.

 

We travel the East Coast corridor a lot by using I-81/I-84/I-87/I-91. You can put those together in a number of ways and by doing so can pretty much avoid all tolls going to Vermont. Regardless of the toll situation I don't like getting any closer to NY City than I have to. If you play with Google Maps for a bit you will discover that our circuitous routing doesn't add very much time to the trip and that's assuming that the time for the "closer in" routes is real. In that part of the country it's routine to find yourself in traffic slowdowns which quickly erode the time savings you think you were going to have.

 

Travel in the East is deceptive and if you haven't used Google Maps for a "what if" exercise you should. Sometimes the results are counter-intuitive. For example, we have several times gone from the mid-Atlantic to the Canadian Maritime provinces by taking I-81 north past Montreal and Quebec and sweeping around north of Maine. That might look like quite an excursion but it's a relaxing route that Google estimates is no more than an hour longer than the traditional one around Boston, through NH and into ME. IMHO when I have time estimates that are ~an hour different on a trip of ~1000 miles I judge them to be the same since it's impossible to estimate real traffic speeds that accurately.

[SIBERNUT]

BTW, if you try to avoid the I95 toll at Susquehanna river, you can go up to rt 1 & cross the Conowingo Dam for free. But be damn sure you are not 102" wide.

[scouserl41]

Actually we know the area very well and where the tolls are. We lived here for 27 years. We got caught by returning over a bridge that only has a toll one way, due to a sudden desire to drive down the Eastern Shore instead of continuing on I95 and the Baltimore traffic mess.

The point of the message was to get people who DON'T know the North East thinking about tolls before they get ripped by unknowingly travelling somewhere like the NJ Turnpike.

But thanks for the input.

BnB

[nana25k]

Since we are in western PA we will use the route we used a few years ago. Make our way up to Rt 20, run thru Schenectady and then up to Essex Junction. No way will I pay a toll or drive on NY interstate. They are just awful in places.