Not so E-ZPass

Give me automated toll collection anyday. Around NYC and the mid-Atlantic states it’s called E-ZPass and using it bypasses the long lines of cars paying tolls for roads, bridges, tunnels, etc. In small towns fire fighters collect “optional” tolls by standing on the main drag with a boot. So below . . .

is an approach used on the Seaway. No, that’s not a long-handled boat brush.

It’s more like . . . pay up or the exit gate doesn’t open. It works.

I looked really carefully and when a laker came through, no manual toll collection was even attempted. In fact,

when Canadian Provider sailed through, they had both the entrance and exit gates open simultaneously.

Maybe it was the daunting flag staff on the bow . . . looked like a jousting lance. Definitely it had something to do with the fact that water level above and below the Iroquois Lock differs only about six inches. Inches, that was.

Photos, WVD.