In Delaware: Traffic Takes Its Toll

By Spencer Davidson

"Hi, how are ya? Sixty cents out of a ten. Here's your change."

From his 3-ft. by 6-ft., glass-walled, air-conditioned booth on the Washington-New York highway, Toll Collector William Piergalline has a smashing view of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, whose twin, gray-green spans arc gracefully over the Delaware River. But Piergalline, 54, a squat, salty, seven-year veteran of the Delaware River and Bay Authority, rarely notices his surroundings. Like the other toll collectors who, along with six automatic coin receptacles, handle the 16 lanes of the bridge's two Delaware-side toll plazas, he is much too busy raking in the cash. Sixty cents a car, $1.50 a bus, $2.50 for a big five-axle tractor trailer. So many tolls in swift, five-second transactions that on a peak day the bridge can bring in $85,000.

"The best way to Washington? Take the left lane and I-95 south."

Piergalline belongs to a large fraternity. The U.S. has 152 such toll bridges, tunnels or highways. They account for nearly 2.2 billion transactions a year. Particularly in Eastern states, motorists have grown accustomed to, if not content with, toll collectors. It is natural to assume that tolltakers are bored by what has to be the world's most monotonous job. Not so. Not on the Delaware Bridge anyway, if the long waiting list for jobs is any barometer. Shifts are regular: the same eight hours daily with two 15-minute beaks and a half-hour lunch five days a week. Salaries increase to $8.05 an hour within three years. All you have to do is count the axles on trucks slowing for the booth, make an appropriate "axle hit" on a twelve-key register, gather in the toll, make change and tally it up at shift's end. The routine can get tedious, true, but each day brings a full-dress human comedy rolling into the toll plazas. Besides, whatever hassles the traffic may bring are likely to last, at most, no more than seconds. "I used to be an accountant," says Piergalline contentedly, "and in an office I had to take the crap eight hours a day."

"Sure I can change a 20. We've got plenty of money."

Ten percent of those crossing Delaware Memorial are commuters. Some are bound for the plants that dot both sides of the river. Some are Jersey shoppers bound for Delaware, where these is no sales tax. Some faces, like those of the truckers who regularly haul furniture up the coast from the Carolinas or run Eastern Shore chickens to New York, tend to become familiar to the toll collectors. Supervisor Ronald Cantino, 34, kept seeing a Jersey girl who commuted to school near Wilmington. First he asked for her phone number, then for a date. Finally he married her. Now they have children.

The long-distance travelers, the business people, tourists, college students ask the strangest questions. Is this the Delaware Water Gap? (No, that scenic stretch where the river slices through Kittatinny Mountain is more than 100 miles upstream.) Am I in Washington, D.C.? What state is Delaware the capital of?

"Delaware Park race track? Ninety-Five south and the Stanton exit. And lots of luck."

Since 1978, when Atlantic City's casinos opened, Piergalline has noticed a pattern emerging. Two new kinds of drivers show up. One, smiling happily, presents a $50 or $100 bill to be changed. The other, downcast, is broke, wiped out at the tables. Once the bridge allowed such destitutes to sign a pledge that they would pay later by mail. But so few honored their promises that the custom was halted. Now, unless they have cash--no checks, no credit cards--they are turned back.

"Virginia Beach? I'd recommend 13 and 301, ma'am. Recommend? I'm beginning to sound like a damned chef."

Twenty times a month, on the average, acrophobiacs show up. Most are given a special chauffeur and driven over the towering spans. A brave few request that a police car follow them so they'll feel safe, and then drive themselves, trying to beat their fear of heights. Suicides turn up too, but no one recognizes them until they stop at the top of the bridge's parabola, 190 ft. above the Delaware, and leap. Since 1951, when the initial span opened, 61 people have jumped, mostly young, mostly white, mostly male, mostly from surrounding communities. Only one survived. The sweltering summer of 1980 has been one of the worst periods ever: from June 22 to July 17, there were four jumpers, all white--a 38-year-old woman and three men, ranging from 26 to 42.

There is also low comedy. Motorists topless, bottomless or both; passengers fornicating in the back seat while their driver fishes for change up front. The automatic cointakers are routinely stuffed with garbage, chicken bones, chewing gum, soft drinks, coffee. In holiday seasons, the all-male toll force is frequently propositioned by lone and lonely women drivers. There are other hazards. An occasional dog goes after the hand that is collecting the toll. Because tolltakers have to shout above the din of traffic for eight hours, they tend to shout when they reach home, to the dismay of their families. Piergalline tries not to shout. He also says "Hello" and "Thank you" to everyone who comes through. "Would you believe it, not four in ten will answer back. That's sad." But he keeps flirting with girls, joking with small children, jollying jaundiced drivers along, all the while methodically stacking their dollar bills and making little quarter-nickel-dime pyramids for change.

A woman towing a trailer snarls at the extra $1 charge. Another woman apologizes for handing him exact change instead of using an automatic lane. "That's O.K.," chirps Piergalline, "the machine wouldn't have answered you anyway." To a teen-age blond in a cowboy hat driving a van: "I'll say one thing. You're prettier than Roy Rogers." The blond answers with a snaggle-toothed giggle. A young man in a yellow Beetle hands him a $2 bill. "I hate twos and I hate Susan B. Anthonys," mutters Piergalline. Ten cars later, he palms the two off on a helmeted girl astride a throbbing Kawasaki.

And so they pass, each assessed according to its own lights, or rather its own axles. Even a bright red 1923 Stephens Salient Six touring car, chugging home from an antique rally, must pay 60-c-. Only once will the toll be waived for a motorist crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge. By local custom, his hearse goes for free

--By Spencer Davidson

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