The next round of Bay Area bridge toll increases in January will also usher in a tiered system, with FasTrak users charged $1 less than those paying by invoice, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Motorists who stick transponder tags in their windshields will pay $9 each time they pass through a toll plaza on one of the region's seven state-owned bridges. People with pre-paid license plate accounts will pay $9.25, while those who receive an invoice in the mail will get the $10 fee, the Chronicle reported. Officials hope the stratified pricing will nudge more people into the FasTrak program, which costs less to manage than mailing bills.
FasTrak usage is "sadly not ubiquitous," said John Goodwin, spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which oversees tolling and rehabilitation of the seven bridges. He estimates that about three-quarters of Bay Area bridge drivers use FasTrak. MTC data shows transponder tags were read on 74% of all crossings made between July 1 and Sept. 30 of this year, the Chronicle reported. Looking up license plates and sending paper bills costs time and money, Goodwin said, and in a small number of cases cameras cannot capture the plate characters.
The push is tied to the conversion of the bridges to open-road tolling, with cameras and sensors on gantries replacing booths. That work is already proceeding on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, which was scheduled to close this weekend so crews could hoist a metal structure over the roadway, the Chronicle reported. Richmond-San Rafael will become the region's first all-lane open-road span after Caltrans tears down the toll booths in April. Next are the Antioch and Carquinez bridges in 2027. The Benicia-Martinez, San Mateo and Dumbarton bridges will follow in 2028. Caltrans is saving the Bay Bridge for last.
Tolls will keep rising. By 2030, FasTrak users will pay $10.50 to cross each Bay Area span, and invoice charges will rise to $11.50, the Chronicle reported. Frank Remlinger of Vallejo, who crosses two bridges each day to get to work in San Francisco, called the upcoming hikes "Satanic." Sunshine Machob of Oakland shared that frustration; both said MTC could charge $5 or $6 and still meet maintenance needs. "I don't really know how to answer to charges of Satanism," Goodwin said. "But it might be equally devilish to not have bridges at all. It is a lot less expensive to preserve our bridges than to rebuild them." Tairat Asuni of Hercules said the tolls are already high, but that if $10 is what it takes to keep the bridges safe, she would go for it.