Toll-Taker

I haven't really been on the computer much, but not for lack of blog material. I guess, much like everyone else, I've been a bit preoccupied.

What strikes me most about the last few weeks is my ride home headed eastbound on one of the worst stretches of freeway in north Orange County-- the 91. Just three exits beyond mines is San Bernardino County, the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis in America.

Reticently, I coasted down the highway at 65 miles an hour. It was as though someone ripped the film from off of a Left Behind movie reel, and spliced it into the Santa Ana wind-blistered windshield of my Taurus. And -- as if someone stuffed cotton balls in my ears -- the ambient sounds of a busy highway reminded me of the whooshing sound of waves crashing on the seashore echoing through a conch shell.

It was eerily peaceful. My commute along 13 miles of a four lane highway, which used to take 45 minutes, now only accounts for a mere 20 minutes of my day at the height of rush hour.

I felt like I was on a deserted island, but I realized that I was not a lone surveyor of the toll the new vacancies are taking on the highway. Fast Trak-- which once boasted a mean $9.50 toll at peak hours just a month ago-- now displays a $5.50 fare and declining. Commuters, who once jockeyed for position on the busy expressway now race down the turnpike. Vehicles, fade like vanishing tolls.

It all make me wonder how soon it will be before the express lane fare disappears completely. How soon before I am counted among the victims of the toll-taker.