Start tolling on floating bridges now

The idea of charging tolls on both of Seattle's floating bridges is back in the news since the state treasurer called foul on financing plans to replace the 520 bridge.

A couple of thoughts on the controversy:

-- Tolls should be implemented right away and the 520 project should start immediately. The charge would help finance the rebuilding project and be an incentive to use transit. Now driving makes sense despite soaring gas prices because buses have less convenient routes, take longer and sit in the same traffic as cars. Charging, say, $1 for each car crossing would begin to alter the calculation. Make it $2.50 next year and $5 after that and the calculus would change.

Tolls or congestion pricing must be paired with commensurate improvements in transit in order to realize the full benefit. Instead of just a regressive tax on poor drivers, tolls are a device to make more efficient use of the infrastructure. It's important that people see improved mobility as a result.

-- A steep charge to use the floating bridges -- it could be as much as $10 -- would lead to dramatic changes in the culture of the metropolitan ara. It would make living closer to work more desirable, keeping more Eastside workers closer to the job and stimulating demand for other services. Nightlife in Bellevue would grow beyond multiplexes and Cheesecake Factory.

Comments

[anonymous]

I like your positive perspective about tolls.

I don't know, I have mixed feelings. Thinking on a micro level....On one hand tolls just suck, they are expensive and inconvenient. Plus it could increase traffic North/South on both 405 & I5 as people try to go around. As a traveller on 405N, it's already bad enough.

But, on the other hand, it could encourage folks to use mass transit. It would be nice to see a link light rail type lane on the new 520.

Oh, and for those of us who live on the outskirts...living closer to work isn't really a desireability choice...it's a financial choice. I'd love to live closer to work, but it's very expensive.

[LarryB]

The problem with adding tolls now is that neither bridge is really configured for toll plazas, and I have little confidence that WSDOT would have the sense to implement electronic toll tags.

Additionally, it wouldn't do anything to improve transit. I grew up riding transit in New York, and never ever drove to work. I tried using transit here, and found it slow, unreliable and baroquely complex.

First create a reasonable transit plan, roll out toll tags and only then put tolls on the bridges.

[brad]

It's true that it would take time for the incentives of tolls to work. That's why it's critical that transit be boosted at the same time. If a $2 toll were added to 520 tomorrow, there would be a lot more crowding on the ST buses. Then there would be more demand for those transit improvements.

Eventually tolls vs. transit will be an incentive that helps decide where people live. It's all about trade offs.

[Louise Mason]

Don't worry, in a few years we'll be paying tolls for lots of roads as well as bridges. It's probably planning that's in the works now. Even now, we who will rarely use the 520 bridge or the Narrows bridge are being stuck w/extra costs via higher toll fees one way or another when we make the very occasional forays across these spans.

Visitors get a break - for 14 days. We other infrequent uses are stuck w/paying the full toll or putting money into a Good to Go account that we could lose and be charged a $5 non use fee! And, we're Washingtonians, too.

[Louise Mason]

Brief history of public transit in Oakland, CA: Housing expanded parallel to the transit rail lines causing neighborhoods to be very long and narrow. After the arrival of the car these neighborhoods widen in the opposite direction making them more traditional looking. Think it was called the Key line.