Chief Editor, View other Ron Khol editorials   A mere handful of
states had them, and the two that I drove most frequently were
in Pennsylvania and Ohio. I never thought about it until
recently, but most early turnpikes, and certainly those in
Pennsylvania and Ohio, scrupulously steered clear of large
cities. Today, cities have grown outward to envelop these two
turnpikes, but at the time they were constructed, they generally
didn't even come close to major urban areas.  I don't know
whether it was prescient wisdom or just happenstance, but people
who planned the Pennsylvania and Ohio turnpikes did cities a
great favor in a somewhat perverse way. You could use the
turnpikes to travel rapidly between distant cities. But once you
got off the turnpike, you were bogged down in ordinary city and
county roads. As you neared your destination, especially if it
was in an urban area, your progress got slower and slower the
closer you got to your goal.  If you worked downtown or in a
close-in suburb, you tended to live