Once upon a time (more specifically, during the late 18th to 19th centuries), Connecticut was laced with 1,600 miles of toll roads. (Here is a list of them.) The tolls were collected not by the government, but by private corporations which built and maintained the roads. Sometimes this involved repairing an existing path, but other toll roads had to be constructed from scratch, carved out of the woods. In 1807, one visitor reported that “in almost every other direction” in Middlesex County, he encountered “a turnpike-road; for these roads being here made objects of private gain…they are established with avidity, on the smallest prospect of advantage.” Tolls were paid at…