Driving on a tollway to avoid congestion can get costly

QHi Honk: Why is the toll so extremely high for the portion on the southbound 15 tollway between Magnolia Avenue and Cajalco Road, which is a stretch of about 2.5 miles? I went through there on a recent Thursday at 2:20 p.m. and it was a whopping $11. It is so high that very few use that stretch, and that defeats the purpose of putting in the tollway altogether. This just creates a bottleneck at that portion on the adjacent, regular lanes of the 15 Freeway. This is the kind of red-meat question that you normally love to go after. I respectfully ask you to look into this and get to the bottom of this nonsense.

AThe 15 Freeway in that stretch has a lot of terrible congestion in the afternoon, hence a rather shocking toll on the corresponding tollway.

“It's a supply and demand function,” said John Standiford, deputy executive director of the Riverside County Transportation Commission. “We're trying to maintain a free flow in the (toll) lanes.”

Before we get too far, a little background for those not familiar with that swath of Southern California.

Finished in April, the 15 Express Lanes run in western Riverside County from the 60 Freeway on the border of Eastvale and Jurupa Valley to Cajalco in south Corona, a 15-mile jaunt with two lanes in each direction in the median of the 15 Freeway.

There are various segments on that 15 tollway, and the price for each is based on past traffic for that day and time. The toll is raised when needed to ensure that traffic is rolling along at a decent clip. The commission wants speeds on the toll lanes in the 60-to-65-mph range.

Can you imagine paying, say, $8 and then hitting a wall of traffic?

The ultimate solution is probably more lanes. The commission is adding a mile-long southbound lane just after Cajalco to Weirick Road, expected to open in September. Standiford said a long-term goal is to expand the toll lanes.

QI have an '85 GMC Sierra three-quarterton pickup. I renewed my registration and found later that as a disabled person I could eliminate the fee for weight. How do I request a refund in the amount of $154 from the Department of Motor Vehicles? I have searched the DMV website and could not find the proper course of action. If a refund is approved, it would reduce my registration fee by nearly half.

AWilliam, Honk is here to help you save some cash.

But a couple of steps are required. You told Honk you are going for a permanent-disabled placard, a fact he relayed to Angelica

Martinez, a DMV spokeswoman.

Getting that permanent designation is key. So is getting a disabled-person license plate on that truck.

“The weight-fee exemption applies to a commercial vehicle with disabledperson license plates registered to a permanently disabled person,” Martinez told Honk in an email. “The exemption is not available to temporarily disabled persons. …

“Once the disabled-person plates are issued, the next full year registration fees will be adjusted to reflect the weight fee exemption and the weight fee will be excluded from the total fees due,” she said. “This exemption is not retroactive.”

(By the way, a qualifying person can have both a disabled-person placard and the plates.)

Many, if not all pickups and other trucks, are considered commercial vehicles because of how they are designed; the designation is not based on the actual use.

There are exemptions, such as in William's case and for some who have permanent shells on the backs of their trucks — they can get non-commercial plates and avoid the fee.

To try and win a waiver, Google “REG 256,” fill out the form and submit it.