For our friends in the Northeast (and elsewhere) who face dramatic increases in road and bridge tolls in the near future, a letter to the editor from the Feb. 9, 1908 NYT:

Now that the Thaw trial is over, please turn your attention to a free Brooklyn Bridge topic and let me know why I should pay 10 cents [$2.26 in 2006 dollars] to drive across the [Brooklyn] bridge, who gets the money, and such other information as will explain why, after I have crossed the bridge, I can drive free over several hundred miles of paved, cleaned, and lighted thoroughfares, that cost many millions of dollars to build and cost ten times as much to maintain as both bridges?