Oh Those Tolls: Back Then…The Unofficial History Of NJ 101.5

New Jersey 101.5 and its talk hosts have pretty much adopted the perspective of "everyman" over the years.

You know, the view of you, the working stiff, the man or woman who gets up every day and grabs a steering wheel or boards a train and commutes to a job in another part of the state, or for that matter, another state.

And we all know that part of that commuting process has for many of us over these many years involved paying tolls on highways such as the Garden State Parkway, the New Jersey Turnpike or the Atlantic City Expressway. Ever-higher tolls, unfortunately.

I remember, back then, in the foggy past of the station's early days, our guys were feeling pretty good about helping you get your voice heard when voters answered Governor Jim Florio's tax hikes by voting him out of office.

And since we had been hearing a lot from you in the early 90's about how much many of you hated and abhored those commuting tolls, our topics frequently turned to how great it would be to, "tear down those toll booths."

"After all", said many of you back then, we have been paying and paying and paying for these roads with their tolls for decades and decades, and we are still paying even more now. The New Jersey Turnpike opened in 1951. The Garden State Parkway opened in 1954. Many of you have done the math over and over again about how very many dollars you have spent year-in and year-out traversing these toll roads...and paying, year-in and year-out.

Here at New Jersey 101.5, this topic has been a hot button issue on the air again and again, (very frequently, the subject arises when there is a proposed toll hike). Groups such as, "Citizens Against Tolls", and others, have sprung up over the years in this ongoing toll battle.

The topic is still a very hot issue in New Jersey and on New Jersey 101.5, even after these many years. But the tolls and the toll roads are still there. For better or worse, Governors and Legislative Leaders in Trenton have come and gone. And the anti-toll cries have been at times loud and vociferous.

But up to this point, anyway, this is one mountain no one has been able to move...

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