Tim May wrote:
> In article <QdOdnc53acrAuBjanZ2dnUVZ_h2pnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Albert
> Worschey <worldwar666@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>> Good reasons suggested so far. I've also heard that many of them
>> started out there, though I haven't looked up the data myself. You're
>> right though about the limited selection in the NJ-PA area. It's tough
>> reading all these discussions (in aff-f) about Del Taco, JitB, etc.
with
>> no frame of reference.
>
> To the list of good reasons submitted so far, I would add two others:
>
> 1. Economy in decline in the Northeast. Fast food franchises have
> tended to expand rapidly in booming areas, not declining refinery or
> steel towns.
>
> 2. The toll road system. It's been awhile since I was in a car in
> Penn/NJ/NY, but my recollection was of a lot of toll roads, with
> limited access points.
>
> Fast food places grow like mushrooms at the onramps and offramps and
> cloverleafs of our freeway system. In-N-Out, for example, almost always
> tries to find a location where there large yellow and red signs are
> visible from a mile away and where motorists can decide to exist at the
> offramp, grab a burger, and get back on the highway.
What if they decide not to exist?
>
> This is possible to do on toll roads, but at much higher cost and
> hassle. (I suppose the fast food chains could cut deals to locate on
> the actual toll road...I recall that this is how Howard Johnson
> operated. Makes it hard for newer FF chains to do the same.)
>
> In California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Oregon, places I am well
> familiar with, there are very few toll roads. (One I know of is in
> Southern California, linking San Juan Bautista to Irvine, about a
> 20-mile private stretch. And, sure enough, limited access points and no
> clusters of fast food chains and gas stations at the access points.)
>
> In Florida, there are both freeways ("free") and toll roads. On one
> long toll road from Fort Lauderdale down to the tip, we passed no fast
> food places at all. On the neighboring highway, hundreds of them.
>
There's fast-food every 40 miles, or so, on the FL Turnpike and the
access is much easier than exiting off of I95 or I75.
>
> I don't think this is the primary reason for fewer FF places, just
> something to add to the list.
>
>
> --Tim May
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