Delaware feels a little snubbed

In their most recent stimulus certification (PDF), the DOT of the little-but great state of Delaware expressed a little lonely sadness in a project description for their famous toll plaza in Newark:

I-95 Newark Toll Plaza (25-090-02)
Justification: This toll plaza experiences high levels of congestion due to the current plaza configuration. As approximately 55 percent of travelers through the plaza utilize E-ZPass, congestion would be drastically reduced with high-speed lanes. This plaza is a regular complaint of motorists traveling through this state, and leaves travelers with a negative impression – in many cases their only impression — of Delaware, impacting reputation, business, tourism and economic development.

I don’t know whether they were playing for some Charlie Brown sympathy, but they might give off a better impression if they got some FRA money for the Wilmington Rail Station, or even fixed their graphs. Don’t worry,  we’ll come visit soon!

This may be the worst graph ever…

From the Delaware Recovery Site. There’s neither a scale nor any quanta, it’s made of shapes that distort the sizes, it has a dull gray background, the labels are unexplained and uncomfortably juxtaposed, and it sure takes a lot of space to say absolutely nothing here… Edward Tufte is probably having a conniption. This kind of graphical blather is no way to further government transparency and demonstrates plain incompetence on the part of the PR department.