Petaluma Argus Courier - 7 hours ago
Imagine the Golden Gate Bridge without humans taking tolls at the iconic booths that stand sentry at the gateway to San Francisco.
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Golden Gate Bridge prepares for future without toll-takers
Published: Tuesday, January 8, 2013 at 11:38 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, January 8, 2013 at 11:38 a.m.
Imagine the Golden Gate Bridge without humans taking tolls at the
iconic booths that stand sentry at the gateway to San Francisco.
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Human toll takers will become a thing of the past as the Golden Gate Bridge switches to all-electronic payment tolls this year.John Burgess/ Press Democrat
Forgot your toll money?
No worries. Just drive on through and either pay at a kiosk down the
road or wait for an invoice to arrive in the mail.
Such
changes appear imminent as the Golden Gate becomes the first bridge in
California and one of the few in the world to convert to all-electronic
tolls.
Bridge officials
express hope that with enough publicity, the conversion, which could
take effect in March, won't cause major problems, such as motorists
stopping on the span in a vain search for someone to give their toll
money to.
"I don't think
anyone will promise it will be glitch-free. It won't," said Brian Sobel,
a Petaluma political consultant and one of three Sonoma County members
on the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District. "But we
want to keep errors to a bare minimum, and I think we're in a position
to do that."
The majority
of people who cross the Golden Gate pay their tolls using the FasTrak
system and won't notice much of a change, except that everyone will be
allowed to pass through the unmanned booths without stopping to pay a
toll.
For everyone else, roughly 30 percent of bridge users, it's going to take some getting used to.
All-electronic
tolls were approved for the Golden Gate in 2011 to ease congestion and
close a projected $66 million, five-year shortfall in the bridge
district's budget.
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