When you think of the Massachusetts Turnpike, perhaps you recall the long car rides to Six Flags New England or the time you visited Tanglewood for a Boston Pops concert. Maybe it was a hike up Mount Tom in the Berkshires or a walk across the David Ortiz Bridge that carries Red Sox fans over the Mass Pike near Boston's Fenway Park.

James Taylor immortalized the Massachusetts Turnpike in the 1970 classic "Sweet Baby James." Taylor sang: "Now, the first of December was covered with snow. So was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston. Though the Berkshires seemed dreamlike on account of that frostin'. With 10 miles behind me and ten thousand more to go."

But for Massachusetts motorists, there is little about the turnpike to be sentimental about. 

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The highway spans 138 miles along an east-west axis from the New York state line to Boston. It is the longest Interstate Highway in Massachusetts.

The turnpike constitutes the Massachusetts portion of Interstate 90 (I-90,) the longest Interstate Highway in the country, connecting Boston and Seattle, Washington. 

Why There Are Still Tolls On The Massachusetts Turnpike
Darren McCollester, Getty Images
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The Mass Pike was built in 1952 using bonds. The state repaid the loans over 30 years by charging tolls. The plan was to remove the tolls in the 1980s.

It didn't happen, and it doesn't seem likely it will any time soon.

Governors Bill Weld, Mitt Romney and Deval Patrick pledged to remove the turnpike tolls, but they didn't. The MBT recommended removing some tolls in Western Massachusetts, but the Legislature's Joint Transportation Committee balked.

In 2017, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation determined that the tolls must continue to fund turnpike repairs and maintenance, which total more than $135 million annually.

Massachusetts Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt recently indicated that additional tolls on other highways may be in the offing. So I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the Mass Pike to go toll-free any time soon.

LOOK: The longest highways in America

Stacker compiled a list of the longest interstates in the United States using 2021 data from the Federal Highway Administration. Read on to find out which ones are the lengthiest.

Gallery Credit: Hannah Lang

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

Gallery Credit: Sophia Crisafulli

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