Cash Lanes Re-Opening On Garden State Parkway

After almost two months, the cash lanes on the Parkway are re-opening. On March 24th, all cash lanes were closed, toll attendants didn't come to work, and cars would be billed via mail if they didn't have EZPass.

Now, starting tomorrow (May 19) at 6am, you'll have the option to pay cash again. According to officials, toll booth workers will wear PPE including gloves, face masks, and plastic face shields. They are also encouraging drivers to wear masks when going through the toll plaza.

I'm all for attendants wearing masks and shields, but the gloves thing, and the drivers wearing masks thing seem kind of odd to me.

It's been pointed out many times that most people don't seem to understand how gloves work in a sterile setting. Doctors and nurses wear gloves, but they dispose of them every time they leave a room. You don't see a doctor put on a pair of gloves, examine a patient, then walk down the hall and right into another room. They toss the gloves, and put on a fresh pair. If a toll attendant is just wearing the same gloves all day, they're going to touch money from thousands of drivers, then hand change back with those same gloves, which just seems like it would ramp up the spread.

As far as drivers wearing masks...we all heard the story of the guy in Ocean County who crashed his car because he was wearing a mask and ended up passing out because he couldn't breathe properly. Even if the message is just to wear the mask when you're at the tollbooth, it seems dangerous to tell people to take both hands off the wheel to place a mask on, pull into the plaza, then remove the mask as they're pulling away. If every person is taking those extra seconds to hook and unhook a mask, the cash lanes are going to build up even faster than usual.

The exact change lanes will also re-open, which sounds like a safer bet to avoid touching money that everyone else has touched. Or just sign up for EZPass.