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Last updated on August 9th, 2017 at 12:33 pm
Ten things everybody should know about the New Jersey Turnpike:
* Governor Alfred E. Driscoll proposed the turnpike 59 years ago
* It featured in Being John Malkovich and The Muppets Take Manhattan
* With overtime, senior toll collectors may earn more than $USD70,000 per year
* It was designed—in the late 1940s, before brakes were invented—for speeds up to 75 mph
* Photography is forbidden on the turnpike
* In the late 1980s, the Turnpike Authority’s boss earned nearly double the state governor’s salary
* It has 12 service areas, one of them named after Vince Lombardi
* Speeding diplomats are banned from the turnpike
* It has its own 200-strong police force
* Proposed landscaping of the turnpike was greeted with scorn.
UPDATE. Jersey girl Kat emails:
As a native who lives and drives the Turnpike, you forgot the most important and memorable aspect of it …
IT SMELLS LIKE ROTTEN EGGS.
There. Now that’s all the facts about the Turnpike. Also—please tell people—that’s the major artery from the aiport north and south. But New Jersey has mountains, beaches and farms. NOT JUST INDUSTRIAL WASTE AND POLLUTION.
I actually like industrial waste and pollution, having grown up west of Melbourne down a stretch of industrialised highway that was a New Jersey Turnpike in miniature. It’s been fancied up lately with your so-called “trees” and such, sadly.
UPDATE II. Ed in comments: “The thing to remember while driving in New Jersey is that we’re not deliberately trying to kill you.”
