During colonial times, America had few roads. The roads it did have were mainly dirt paths that were almost impossible to travel down during bad weather

Turnpikes
During colonial times, America had few roads. The roads it did have were mainly dirt paths that were almost impossible to travel down during bad weather. The rocky and unstable routes were bad for wheeled carriages, as stones and potholes could severely damage carriages and stagecoaches.
Traveling took a long time and was often expensive. For example, the cheapest way to get from Northampton, Massachusetts to Boston was to go to Windsor, Connecticut on land, and down the Connecticut River to Long Island Sound. Then, you had to take a ship around Cape Cod, and finally you would reach Boston. This trip was more than 280 miles long, even though Northampton was, in reality, only 100 miles away from Boston.
One solution to these poor roads was turnpikes. A turnpike is a privately owned road that is usually built by a local or state government. The government takes care of the road and, in return, people who use the road pay a fee, or toll. Turnpikes got their name because the first private road had a line of spikes that the toll collector would move after each driver had paid the toll.
In 1794, the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike was built. The Philadelphia and Lancaster Company earned a lot of money from it. Soon more and more decent roads were built, and by 1821, over 4,000 miles of turnpikes linking all the major Northern and middle Atlantic cities with towns along the East coast. The system of turnpikes allowed farmers to send larger volumes of goods in less time. As a result, freight costs were reduced.
However, turnpikes were not enough to solve the nation’s problems. Even with government money to care for them, turnpikes were slow and uncomfortable for passengers, and were impractical for transporting large quantities of goods. In addition, many people hated having to pay a toll each time they wanted to travel along a road. In response, more Americans considered improving water transportation and railway transportation to help meet travel needs.



A traveler stops at a toll booth along an early turnpike.

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