Delaware seems to want more highway traffic to use businesses on local streets. Then to really promote /build service areas because De-1 doesn’t have one.
I don’t take this as an official stance of DelDOT against service areas but rather an admission that they’re an anachronism which are no longer really necessary.
The practice of having service areas along toll roads goes back in this country to the Pennsylvania Turnpike (which in turn modeled them around the Rasthöfe of the German Autobahns). And crossing the Alleghenies in 1940, service areas were arguably a necessity. Not only because of the lack of fuel and dining facilities along the rural Turnpike route but also because the cars of the time (many of them ’20s and ’30s clunkers still being nursed along from the Depression) weren’t durable enough to handle sustained high-speed driving. Tire blowouts were common, as were radiator boil-overs and all types of mechanical failures. Each service area had repair bays and a mechanic on duty, and they had their hands full patching up breakdowns and putting them back on the road.
I don't know. Yes, it's certainly true that cars and tires and gas mileage have all improved. However, I think the idea behind keeping service plazas on the PA Turnpike, NJ Turnpike, and similar closed-system toll roads is so that drivers don't have to pay a toll and get another toll ticket (yes I'm talking about pre-EZPass) to "eat here and get gas." That and I can't POSSIBLY be the only person who's noticed that gas prices in the service areas along the {Mass Pike / NJ Turnpike / PA Turnpike / pick your favorite closed system toll road / former closed-system toll roads like I-95 in Maryland and Delaware} are usually 5-10c/g more expensive than their off-highway counterparts. I almost ALWAYS use GasBuddy to find the cheapest station (I'm a big Waze evangelist, being a volunteer map editor, and though Waze tried to include this functionality it's still worse than GasBuddy in this area, but I digress). E-ZPass and the ability to research gas prices have obviated the need for the service areas for sure, at least for me. (Even with New Jersey's moronic prohibition on self-serve gas, they're still the cheapest state in the area and I always get gas there when passing through even if I don't need it.)
BUT... Stop into any service area on a closed-system toll road and they're almost always crowded. The only time I've observed this not to be the case is during the overnight hours. Then you have people like my wife who get anxious about leaving the highway and not being able to find suitable eateries and/or gas stations (this even though she loves to look for places to eat on Yelp et. al.!!!). I don't think the service areas are going away any time soon. They may be unnecessary, strictly speaking, in today's world, but the driving public still appears to welcome their presence and to patronize them despite the higher prices they have on gas / food / convenience store fare compared with those things "in the neighborhood" near the toll road but not on it.
But Maryland is no different than other states. They want to take it easy on tolling in-state drivers.
Is that so? May I present to you the Lexus Lanes along the I-495 Capital Beltway and I-95/I-395 corridor in Virginia, MD-200, the Lexus Lanes on I-95 north of Baltimore... heck, the
Verrazano Narrows Bridge -- A Staten Islander is a resident of New York State and yet to get to a job in any other part of the state, s/he can expect to pay $20 a day in tolls when driving over that bridge. Is that "taking it easy on tolling in-state drivers?"
And at least Pennsylvania grants the E-ZPass discount to all E-ZPass users, regardless of what authority issued the transponder. (This should be mandated federally.)
I wholeheartedly agree. One of the main reasons I avoided switching from a Massachusetts Fast Lane tag to a Maryland E-ZPass tag when I moved from the Boston area to the DC area is (1) Until a few years ago, Maryland charged a monthly E-ZPass fee which was waived if you used MD toll facilities 3x per month, whereas Mass charged no such fee, and (2) I rarely, if ever, use Maryland's toll facilities. I'd probably use them more if I (say) lived in Harford County or lived in Montgomery County and commuted to somewhere like Laurel, but living in Carroll County, it's just rarely necessary. As soon as Governor Hogan ordered the MTA to drop the monthly E-ZPass fee, I dropped my Fast Lane tag in favor of a Maryland E-ZPass. I no longer needed a discount on Mass Pike tolls because I no longer lived in Mass.
With my current commute situation, I'm on the Pennsylvania Turnpike AT LEAST twice a week, and I get the same $8.64 toll from 236 to 326 that a Pennsylvania E-ZPass tagholder would get. I'm thankful for that, as Pennsylvania charges a monthly fee that Maryland does not charge.
I have no idea why all the different toll agencies have different E-ZPass fee structures and toll structures. There's an E-ZPass Inter-Agency Group (IAG) that exists (
http://e-zpassiag.com ) and THAT should be the ONLY agency to issue an E-ZPass... distributing the collected tolls to the various tolling authorities and states as necessary. That way, EVERYONE gets the same fee structure (or lack thereof) and toll discounts EVERYWHERE.
In contrast, Delaware and Maryland have practically predatory approaches to I-95 tolling. A Delaware resident could live a lifetime in-state and commuting to Pennsylvania and never once have to pay his home state’s I-95 toll. In Maryland, 90% of the state’s population live on the western side of the JFK toll barrier. But at least Delaware gives the E-ZPass rate to all E-ZPass users. Maryland not only reserves the E-ZPass rate for MD tags (on I-95 as well as other toll roads and bridges in the state), it offers various commuter discounts that can bring the toll down to barely a third of what an out-of-stater–even one with E-ZPass–is forced to pay.
As I said above, I live in a part of Maryland where I *rarely* need to use a Maryland toll facility. And when I do, I go out of my way to avoid doing so if at all possible (US-1 across the Conowingo Dam is a bad alternative to the I-95 and US-40 bridges, but it DOES come in handy).