Bay Area’s intrepid toll collectors fade into relic of past
His radio blaring R&B, his disco ball glittering, his body in perpetual motion, toll collector Sonny Hasme danced all day in his small booth as he accepted coins and bills from thousands of drivers crossing the RichmondSan Rafael Bridge and the Carquinez Bridge.
Hasme, 51, a toll collector for 19 years, was among scores of men and women who staffed the Bay Area’s toll bridges, making change, giving directions, offering sightseeing tips, exchanging greetings with drivers — and sometimes imprinting the job with their own unique character.
Now the region’s toll collectors are a relic of the past. Like elevator operators, buggywhip makers and many more, their unique occupation has been usurped by the march of progress.
When the pandemic started,
highway officials abruptly replaced inperson toll collection on the Bay Area’s seven stateowned bridges with electronic systems because of the danger of contagion. They have decided not to reinstate the human toll collectors. The Golden Gate Bridge went electronic in 2013, while Southern California tolls already were electronic, meaning the era of inperson toll collection is over for California.
For drivers, the nocash systems are faster (no slowing down to pay tolls), safer (less chance for collisions) and cleaner (no lines of idling cars). But, still, there is a loss of something intangible.
“Commuters will definitely miss the personal touch,” Hasme said. “For years, some people never transitioned to FasTrak because they liked having an interaction with a human being in the toll booth.”
The jobs of 150 toll collectors, plus 100 supervisors, administrators and custodians, will officially end in July. Meanwhile they are doing clerical tasks and taking online training. They have first dibs on vacant state jobs for which they’re qualified.
It’s not just Bay Area toll collectors who are going away.
“During the pandemic many toll operators across the U.S. that were planning to move to allelectronic tolling accelerated their process, including the states of Pennsylvania, Maryland and the New York Thruway Authority,” said Bill Cramer, a spokesman for the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, an industry trade group. “It’s tough to see these jobs going away, but it’s an area where technology is making such rapid advancement.”
Tolling dates back to ancient times. Travelers in the seventh century B.C. paid a toll to use the SusaBabylon highway in Persia. Toll roads and bridges in the U.S. have existed since colonial times.
Tolling happens 24/7, so toll collectors worked around the clock. Their ranks have stayed constant for years, not thinning even after FasTrak was deployed to most bridges starting in 2000.
“Though not physically demanding, it was hard mentally, making change quickly, with people in cars sometimes impatient, occasionally honking at us to hurry up,” said Barbara Quintero, a toll taker on the Golden Gate Bridge from 2000 to 2013. She’s now a bus driver for Golden Gate Transit.
She got to know some families who commuted with their kids — “seeing them grow up before my eyes was amazing.”
There were medical emergencies. Once a man drove up complaining of chest pains. Quintero pushed her panic button to notify authorities, and then drove the man’s car to the shoulder.
There were random acts of kindness — drivers who paid the toll for the car behind them, which other drivers would sometimes pay forward. At holidays, regulars would give the toll collectors homemade treats, Starbucks gift cards and other tokens of appreciation. They weren’t allowed to accept cash gifts.
Larry Collins, 63, was a Carquinez Bridge toll collector for 23 years. When he started, the toll was 75 cents. Now it’s $6.
“I enjoyed the interactions with the patrons — well, 99% of the patrons,” he said. “Sometimes I’m the first person they see. I say, ‘Good morning,’ they say, ‘Oh, you speak!’ A good morning takes you a long way, and it leads into conversation, into interaction.”
A sports fanatic, Collins was delighted when his sports heroes drove up. He said he spoke with Joe Montana, Bill Russell, Ronnie Lott, Tony Dungy (an NFL coach) and Vlade Divac (an NBA player and general manager of the Sacramento Kings).
The booths had stools, thick rubber floor mats, portable heaters, portable fans, plus central heating and air filtration. Some toll takers wore masks to block exhaust fumes, but several said open windows and air circulation kept the air breathable.
There were downsides. Toll collectors were robbed, especially on the Carquinez Bridge where the toll plaza comes after crossing the bridge, allowing for an easier getaway.
“They’d pull up, pull out a gun and say, ‘Give me your tray,’ ” Collins said. “We were told always to comply; don’t risk your life.”
Sometimes cars would catch on fire. “I’d hand the patron a fire extinguisher and call the fire service,” Hasme said.
Once, Hasme experienced a highspeed chase with about 10 Vallejo squad cars pursuing a Yugo.
“He made a Uturn and came right through my lane,” Hasme said. “We were told to duck down under the booth. That little Yugo was flying, and all you could see was squad car after squad car. I believe they apprehended him around the Columbus Parkway exit.”
Toll collecting was a stable job but hardly lucrative. Entrylevel fare collectors started at about $38,000 a year.
Collins said he worked his way up to making between $50,000 and $60,000 a year, enough to support his four kids, now grown. “It paid the bills, you know,” he said. It helped that he lived in Lathrop, a threehour roundtrip commute.
He’s not sure yet about his next steps, whether he wants to retire or seek another job, possibly with the DMV, which is recruiting toll collectors, he said.
Even before the current situation, Hasme transitioned to another CalTrans job and is a customer service liaison, processing complaints about highway maintenance.
Hasme, 51, born and raised in Vallejo, long wanted to be a toll collector.
“I was always crossing the bridge and thought it was a fun job interacting with people and also easy,” he said.
And that turned out to be true. His allday dancing evolved over time; initially he wasn’t sure if he’d be disciplined for grooving to the tunes.
“I never got tired; that’s how I kept in shape,” he said. “They say it’s such a monotonous job, so I kept focused on dancing, smiling at the public and striking up a conversation every now and then.
“I made it more enjoyable and entertaining for people,” he said. “They would even search for me crossing the bridge on their daily commute. I had thousands of fans over my career.”
He befriended a lot of delivery drivers, one of whom gave him a disco ball.
“I hung it up on the ceiling of the booth with paper clips,” he said. “It was real shiny and bright; I felt like John Travolta in there. I’m from the disco era, too.”
Quintero, at the Golden Gate Bridge, is nostalgic about her place in history.
“Toll collectors were once the sentries of Bay Area roads, but technology made us obsolete,” she said wistfully.