Heap of funds needed to make spans cashless
All seven of the Bay Area’s staterun bridges will be tearing out their toll booths and converting to a cashless, allelectronic toll system within the next four years. The first changeovers are expected as early as 2022.
And it’s not going to be cheap.
The Open Road Tolling Plan that has been approved by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission is expected to cost $55 million, interior memos reveal.
“No question there is a big
upfront cost,” said MTC spokesman Randy Rentschler.
Going cashless will mean closing and reconfiguring traffic lanes, finding new jobs at Caltrans for the toll takers and getting the estimated 103,000 drivers a day who now pay cash to cross the bridges to buy into FasTrak.
The bridge conversions will likely begin on the lesstraveled Antioch and Dumbarton bridges, then move on to the Carquinez, Benicia, RichmondSan Rafael and San Mateo bridges. Last in line is the heavily used Bay Bridge.
“Some of the bridges are going to be easy and some are going to be really hard,” Rentschler said.
Costs include $21 million to tear out existing toll plazas and install a $14 million camera system to capture the license plates of the estimated 130 million drivers a year that pass through the toll plazas daily.
The new system will have highresolution cameras suspended over the traffic lanes that will be able to capture clear images of even the tiny license plates on motorcycles traveling at the 55 and 65 mph speed limits so drivers won’t have to slow down anymore.
The overhead system is already in place on the left lanes of the Benicia Bridge, and the far right three lanes of the Bay Bridge, which are open to drivers using FasTrak.
“The good news is that we expect to recover our costs within a few years, as operating two separate toll collection systems — cash and electronic — is redundant and expensive,” Rentschler said.
The MTC estimates the new system will save from $7 million to $11 million a year in reduced labor and maintenance costs.
“We also expect the faster toll times to reduce car emissions by as much as 8%,” Rentschler said.
The commission is also pushing the idea that ending the cash system will speed traffic over the spans, as it has on the Golden Gate Bridge, which stopped using toll takers in 2013 when it went allelectronic.
Golden Gate Bridge spokeswoman Priya Clemens said although there were no hard data on crossing times since the bridge went cashless, there has been a visible improvement.
“On many days the backup at the toll plaza used to be 20 to 25 minutes in the morning peak. That disappeared,” she said.
“The timesaving bonus drivers will get on many days will be meaningful,” on the seven other bridges as well, Rentschler said. But not on all days. Given that traffic counts on the seven bridges are at near historic highs, the MTC estimates that the time saved by eliminating toll takers will be between three to seven minutes max during peak hours.
And there will be a downside for current FasTrak users, as there won’t be dedicated lanes set aside for them.
“On some bridges, like the RichmondSan Rafael where cash payers hold up everyone, there will be an improvement for FasTrakers,” Rentschler said. “But, no question, it will mean slower times for FasTrakers on the Bay Bridge, especially on weekends.”
The plan is to do most of the construction at night and to minimize lane closures during commute hours. One exception will be on the RichmondSan Rafael Bridge, which has no room to divert traffic during construction.
There will also be changes to lane configurations going onto the bridges, but Rentschler said it’s too early to know what those changes will be.
In total, going cashless is expected to cost about $7.8 million per bridge, more than twice the $3.2 million the Golden Gate Bridge spent when it went all electronic.
One of the biggest cost differences is the $9 million that the MTC will be spending on project management consultants and for a $5 million public relations campaign to get word out.
“We learned a lot when Golden Gate Bridge went cashless,” Rentschler said.
While the Golden Gate is not a stateoperated bridge, the MTC handles the electronic collections on it and on the state bridges.
“Our customer service call center became overwhelmed,” Rentschler said. “Everything from handling thousands more phone calls, to mailing thousands of invoices to customers, to processing payments.”
Plus, he added, “They didn’t tear the booths out.”
Or hire as many consultants.
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Phil Matier appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIXTV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call 4157778815, or email pmatier@ sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @philmatier