It's getting harder and harder to find payphones. ANYwhere. When you do, they are vandalized or smell like a nasty truckstop bathroom (often the case when transients are nearby). Phone companies realize that they are a losing proposition except in the most trafficked of areas.

They are usually the last things to get repaired on the worklist, the first things to break or get broken by punks, and don't return nearly enough on the investment if they aren't busy. Funny enough, even those call collect commercials have gone away because of the advent of ubiquitous cellular and VOIP technology and drop in both cost and barriers to entry (such as the pay-per-use phones and widespread broadband). I mean, if Carrot Top can't make a buck anymore on those commercials, how do you think the local Telco thinks about the spraypainted piece of crap payphone with the missing handset?