FREDERIC BASTIAT WOULD NOT BE AMUSED BY BREEZEWOOD.

He had some fun with rent-seeking hoteliers calling for a break of gauge or other mandatory transfers between trains so as to provide custom for the hotels and beaneries, as well as keeping assorted freight handlers and draymen in work.

But if you operate similar sorts of establishments in Breezewood, Pennsylvania, you might get favorable press from Salena Zito.

Like much of America 120 years ago, Breezewood was nothing more than a rural pasture located between two mountain ridges made up of dairy farms, cows and not much else. In 1913 the Lincoln Highway was built right through the center of it, and a couple of industrious farmers built touring cabins for families to stop for the night on their way west.

When the Pennsylvania Turnpike opened in the 1940s, this tiny town responded gratefully to its designation as an exit — and a gas station, motel and truck stop followed.

The Breezewood of motels, restaurants, truck stops and kitsch that we know today happened in the 1960s when Interstate 70 was built; instead of connecting the interstate as a ramp to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the exit configuration forces the driver to spend half of a mile in this town.

That paragraph doesn't identify the rent-seeking. Rather, the rent-seeking is hidden in the boosterism.

For some, that is an opportunity to stretch their legs, eat a meal or spend the night; for others, it is an annoyance, a disturbance, if you will, to their ability to travel along at a 70 mph clip from point A to point B — how dare they be forced to sit through one or two red lights in a small town that reeks of everything they find wrong with the world?

Never mind that they are passing by places that keep people who live in rural America gainfully employed, people who make sure the gas pump is working so you can fill up your tank or that the food they serve to you is warm and good.

They also turn down your sheets, patch your tires or offer you the choice of dozens of kitschy postcards to send to your family because you know they will appreciate it.

Somehow, Erie, Pennsylvania managed despite never becoming that mandatory transfer station on either the New York Central or the later Nickel Plate, and it hung onto its Waldameer Park (with some new roller coasters) to boot.

Those eateries and convenience stores with gas stations attached?  With Pennsylvania's confusing stroads, getting in and out of them is a pain.  There is no reason not to connect Seventy to the Turnpike with an Interstate-standard ramp.