me and bridges

[calimac]

In my previous post, on technological change, I wrote: "Before about 1970, toll bridges in the Bay Area charged tolls in both directions, until some genius realized you could make nearly the same amount of money at half the cost by charging twice as much in only one direction." I'd like to expand on that further, with an emphasis on the nearly.

I live in a waterlogged region with eight toll bridges. Readers from outside the area are going to need a map, and here's one showing all eight, including the oft-forgotten Antioch Bridge (forgotten because it leads from the sizable town of Antioch to ... nowhere in particular, just back highways wandering around the Delta farmlands). The four bridges that cross the Bay (running down the middle) charge tolls westbound, the three that cross the Sacramento River (across the top) charge northbound, and the Golden Gate Bridge charges southbound.

Despite this profusion of bridges, however, I rarely need to cross any, and even more rarely in the toll direction. This is because I live at the base of the Peninsula (just off the bottom of the map, directly below the label for the Dumbarton Bridge), and can get anywhere up to San Francisco or in the East Bay without crossing any bridges. And when I travel to Marin or points north (where I go maybe once a year, if that), I go up on the Golden Gate Bridge and back on the Richmond, and pay no tolls at all, because the trip is much the same in time by either route. Crafty penny-pinching, no? The only times I have to pay a toll are when I'm going to Napa or Solano or further north that way (admittedly more often than I used to, now that B's family is migrating up there - one could theoretically go around, but that'd be enormously time-consuming) or when a single trip involves errands in both the East Bay or Marin and San Francisco that have to be done in that order, sometimes involving giving a friend a ride.

I'd say I pay toll maybe 3 or 4 times a year. Mostly on Carquinez or Benicia, sometimes on the Bay Bridge, though I've gone tollwise on all 8 at one time or another. (At Antioch it was to complete my collection: I had no other reason to cross that bridge, or even to go to Antioch.) Consequently I haven't bothered to acquire one of those devices which let you pay electronically and avoid the toll booths. (There are no toll roads here, though there are some electronic-only toll commuter lanes, but since I don't commute, I don't need those either.) Not even since the Golden Gate Bridge went electronic-only. One day I did attend an afternoon event in Marin and an evening concert in the City, so I went to the web site and paid in advance (worked fine), but the previous time I'd gone tollwise on the Golden Gate was like 20 years earlier, so that's not going to happen often either.

When all the bridges go all-electronic, which they're threatening to do in a few years, I'll probably decide that keeping a device loaded is less trouble than repeated visits to the web sites for my frequency of use, but until then I'm not worrying about it.

Comments

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

The major Dartford Crossing on the Thames estuary not so far from here has just gone all electronic which I suspect will cause pretty good havoc until people get used to it and even then, what of out of region folks or foreign visitors?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

A point raised frequently in the local traffic columns about the Golden Gate Bridge.

Most visitors from far out of the area will have rented cars, and - judging from my own experience renting cars in areas with electronic toll roads - the rental agencies will explain all and offer you a transponder (which you only pay rental on if you use it).

Anybody else who doesn't already know about the bridges is supposed to read signs posted on the way, but reading a wordy, small-print sign on the motorway is not feasible. In practice if you cross a bridge with neither the transponder nor a pre-payment, you must hasten to a website and pay there within a couple days, or they'll use your recorded license plate number to send you a bill for a fine.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

They're pretty much already admitting to seeing the fines as a stealth tax and a massive source of additional revenue which is going down like a lead balloon locally as you can imagine!

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I think that checking up on the toll road situation whenever one anticipates driving in a strange city is just going to have to become a regular feature of life.

Tricks of the trade were not unknown even under the coin regime. The turnpike around Chicago has tollbooths every few miles, at each of which you had to stop and pay 40 cents, an annoying sum as it required a quarter and a dime and a nickel (or else four dimes). Some of the exits also charge a supplementary toll, which could be any smaller amount, and many of them were unstaffed and took exact change only. There was no warning of this until it was too late. I learned to take large stashes of all three kinds of coin with me whenever I went to Chicago. (You couldn't get them at a bank. Banks will only give change to their own customers, for some hermetic reason.)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

they'll use your recorded license plate number to send you a bill for a fine.

Actually, we did this a few weeks back (knowingly), and what they sent us through the mail was a seven-buck toll charge. Which was what we'd been told would happen (http://goldengate.org/tolls/alreadycrossedbridge.php) - if you pay within 21 days, there's no penalty.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Heh. I commute over the San Mateo bridge every day (well, approx. four days a week), so a FasTrak transponder is absolutely necessary for me. I'm actually on my second one...

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

In your case, absolutely. I'd do the same. Why a second one? What happened to the first?

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

I forgot to retrieve it when the Volvo was wrecked...