OFF MESSAGE? I made a trip east to a train show, which meant subjecting myself to the Illinois Tollway, which continues to come up with ways to spend toll revenue, despite having paid off the original construction bonds years ago (at which time the bell was supposed to toll for the tolling.) Infrequent users of the tollway have the choice of either making the authority a large interest-free loan to obtain an I-Pass or to pay a higher cash toll. The I-Pass system has the potential to pass muster at the Pigou Club, but it isn't implemented very well. (For example, there is a rudimentary form of time-of-day pricing for trucks, but the trucks bypass the tollways, adding to the congestion on the arterial streets and state and federal highways.)

The latest alleged improvement is something called open-road tolling, which no doubt would have pleased the late William Vickrey. I-Pass holders are able to have money deducted from their accounts without reducing speed. But because the open-road tolling locations are in the middle of yuppie hell, the drivers are no doubt too involved in yakking on their car-phones or farding or guzzling their extra-caffeinated Big Gulps to notice the OPEN ROAD TOLLING ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH GOVERNOR signs overhead. On the other hand, the occasional users and tourists and truckers are all jumbled together in slow-moving attended lanes (was that a concession to the toll-takers' local?) with plenty of opportunity to see the Boy Blunder taking credit for their extended delays.

The work on updating those funky above-the-road oases is finished, but I recommend the Indiana service plazas, particularly the South Bend Chocolate and the Dairy Queen. Indiana also allows 70 mph running.