Saturday, December 02, 2006

Things that irritate me...

One thing that irritates me is the West Virginia Turnpike. Here is a list of the things about the Turnpike that I do not like.

1. The turnpike itself. I-77 runs from Princeton to Parkersburg. Why only pay tolls between Charleston and Princeton? It seems that people traveling in the northern part of the state get a break. They can travel to and from Charleston for free. Solution: Make all of I-77 a turnpike. Then the tolls can be reduced. Therefore helping southern West Virginians.
2. Construction. The turnpike is always under repair. The road alternates between concrete and asphalt. Seem to always be ripping one up and putting down the other. Surely, one has to be better than the other for construction purposes. Choose one! I-77 between Charleston and Parkersburg does not seem to be under construction as much as the turnpike. Why? The traffic is about the same and the weather is about the same.
3. The toll booth at the North Beckley exit. Why is this around? All the nuisance tolls were removed except for this one. Get rid of it. I believe it is there to 1) provide a few jobs due to promises made and 2) squeeze some money from the tourist that are going white water rafting.
4. Traffic back ups at the toll booths. Why not have a policy that if the traffic get backed up to a certain point, people are let through for free. It would be good PR and make some people happy.

Turnpike facts taken from the June 30, 2005 Financial Report:

88 - Miles of road on the turnpike
116 - number of bridges
374 - Permanent employees
98 - Temporary Employees
28 - State Police assigned to the turnpike
1 - K9 Units
66,000,000 - Total Revenue $$ in 2005
64,000,000 - Revenue $$ from tolls
250,000 - dollars paid annually by WV Parks, Economic Development, and Tourism Authority to the Hatfield-McCoy Regional Recreation Authority

2 comments:

kayakdave said...

The WV turnpike from Charleston south is the ORIGINAL WV turnpike. Charleston and north were built under the interstate building program financed by Fed. tax dollars and therefore should not be a toll road. My bitch is when you are traveling along an interstate and you are suddenly on some states toll road. That doesn't seem right to me. The reason for the road construction differences should now become clear to you.

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