Yesterday I was making my way into the city, and to do so I opted to travel through the Harbor Tunnel. The Harbor Tunnel, also know as “that big hole what goes under the water but the street stays dry” or 895 tunnel, is a quick and convenient way for me to get from my glorious and expansive hacienda in Glen Burnie to points on the eastern side of Baltimore City, specifically Canton. That is, the Harbor Tunnel WOULD be a quick and convenient way for me to get there were the MTA not so eagerly invested in ways to fuck it up.
As I approached the Harbor Tunnel I quickly noticed that traffic was backing up, and having an EZPass I made my way to the left hand lanes so that I could eschew the lower form of driver who must pay for their toll with cash in the right hand lanes. After 20 minutes and a quarter of a mile I crested the hill in front of the toll plaza to see that the left-most EZPass lane had been closed, and all the other lanes had been changed to accept both EZPass and cash. This meant that the EXPass holders who would have quickly moved out of the mass of cars backing up the toll plaza were forced to wait behind all the schmucks who needed to pay with cash. The situation was compounded by the fact that of 9 possible lanes to be open, only 3 were. Why even HAVE EZPass lanes if you’re not going to open them you fucking retards?
So I waited patiently, silently wishing that all the cars in front of me would explode in beautiful balls of fire, either landing somewhere off the roadway, or vaporizing completely. When I finally made it to the toll I did my duty as an EZPass holder and didn’t stop. I kept rolling in order to keep the traffic behind me moving. But the “Toll Paid” light wasn’t popping up. I slowed down. I was inching along, waiting for the light to light up. I had passed the light and still hadn’t seen it light up, so I assumed all was fine. As I accelerated I heard a buzzing alarm and realized I hadn’t paid my toll. So I looked around for a place to pull over and straighten things out, but there were two tolls between me and the right shoulder, and irritated drivers were pouring out of them. So I just went through the tunnel and assumed I’d be pulled over on the far end.
No such luck. The tunnel had been so clusterfucked with construction that there was no place for me to pull over or to even BE pulled over. So I continued along to my destination and had a lovely time, thank you very much.
But now I’m thinking I’m probably going to get a ticket for not paying the toll, and it’ll probably be for a bajillion dollars, and 94 points on my license, and my address will be published in a telephone directory of sadist party clowns with home invasion fantasies. And I’m pissed off because it’s not my fucking fault! I approached the toll at about 5 miles per hour, and went through at about 1 mph, and it doesn’t really count for anything, but I wanted to straighten the whole thing out right away. So now I have an EZPass that might be broken, and the next time I try to go through the tunnel I might get ass fucked again.
Thanks a lot, MTA. Thanks for having such an idiotic approach to managing toll traffic, and thanks for having defective EZPasses so that you can fuck over people who are trying to ease congestion. Fuck you.
Luckily, Light Rail was totally fucked up today and yesterday as well. Good times all ’round. Nothing like walking 10 unnecessary blocks in 92% humidity…
They have your plates. They’ll send you a notice in the mail that the $2 toll was added to your EZ pass account.
Then, they’ll tell you that you avoided paying the toll and charge you $15, because they’re rat fuckers.
The first thing I would check for an EZ pass to not work is to see if your account is still in good standing. It’s easy to forget your credit card expires in June and then try to go through a toll. The devices themselves almost never fail since there’re no electronics or batteries or anything like that. It’s just an RFID chip, basically.
Its stories like this that warm my heart and make me feel like paying $90,000 per month to live in NYC is worth it because I don’t have to drive.
Well, at least you didn’t get stuck in the tunnel in the heat and have your car overheat and radiator explode. That almost happened to me, but my car waited to overheat just outside the tunnel. Thank god. I would have been the person who backed up all the traffic and then you might have called me a vehicular f*ckwit.
Everything you wanted to know and more about EZPass You can check your account online.
But yeah, EZPass is supposed to not just be easy, but EZ!
Something similar happened to me, but in Texas. For not paying my toll, I was awaken in the middle of the night by the Toll Tag Nazis, dragged out of bed and thrown into a concentration camp created just for Toll Transit abusers. As further punishment for my alleged crime I was made to pick up dead armadillos off the side of the roads. Oh yeah, I was anally raped too. With the dead armadillos.
Actually, all they did was mail me a ticket for 50.00 dollars. I did have to go to the Toll Tag office and explain what happened. They then dropped the fine and only charged me the .75 cents for the original toll.
Actually, this is not the MTA, but the MdTA. The MTA is the Mass Transit Authority–those who screw up Light Rail, Buses, and MARC trains–while the MdTA is a semi-autonomous “authority” that runs not quite under the auspices of the Maryland Department of Transportation. The MdTA is responsible for bridges and tunnels, and they have their own independent police force that has little else to do.
Both entities are equally annoying, and I deal with the MdTA frequently with my commute. That said, I always avoid I-895, as it is too much of a pain to deal with anymore. That tunnel is old, always has a tube closed, and is prone to strange backups such as that. Avoid that and take the Ft. Mac if you can.
As someone who lived on the east side for many years, I found the fastest way to get to the Patterson Park area from my Glen Burnie area office was to get off of I-95 at Key Hwy, go around the harbor and take Pratt Street all the way across. It’s so much faster because traffic actually moves!
blah blah blah YOU’RE GOING TO JAIL.
say hi to nicole richie when you get there.
Funny you mention this. Your wife’s nickname in college was EZPass.
Go see my post from yesterday, then pay all of your future tolls in ass pennies.
I used to make that commute every morning for 2 years. About 3% of the time the EZPass reader screwed up. They cross reference your tag against existing EZPass members, so it will likely be corrected without your intervention.
On an unrelated note, the title of this post brought back a flood of memories from my first job working in a checkout line as a dong bagger.
@mokiejovis
There is a battery in the EZPass transmitter. It lasts about ten years before it needs to be replaced.
Is this post your alibi for “accidentally” neglecting to pay your toll? :)
I’m still waiting to see if I’m going to get a ticket for blowing the toll in Perryville because some dumb bitch wouldn’t LET me get over to the EZPass lane….WHICH WAS ON THE RIGHT. WTF? I ended up blowing through the DECALS ONLY lane.
Ahhh, a simliar event happened to me while driving into NYC for the NYC ComicCon. I was heading through that toll at the end of the lincoln tunnel or whatever, and ended up driving through an EZPass only lane, and I did not have the EZPassness.
A few days later my parents got a letter saying I had to pay the toll in 15 days, or be fined an extra 20-some odd dollars as well as the toll.
It wasn’t that bad of an experience. Really. No ass-fucking, or reach-arounds for me. No sir.