The Scoop on Seattle’s 520 bridge construction, plans, fines and toll increases
Gas, parking, rent, taxes… living in Seattle certainly isn’t cheap to begin with, and lately Seattlites have one more place to dump change with the addition of the pricey 520 bridge toll enforced by the Washington State Department of Transportation. Between $1.64 and $5.13, depending on the time of day and the method of payment (either by mail or with a “Good to Go” pass) is collected from drivers driving between Seattle and the Eastside to contribute to funding the construction of a new bridge.
Visitors and Seattlites who choose to pay by mail have to pay about $1.50 more each time they cross the bridge than those who set up “Good to Go” accounts online, and have to pay by responding to the bill they receive in the mail linked to the address on their vehicle’s drivers license. If a driver doesn’t pay with 15 days of receiving their bill, another bill is sent to them with an extra $5 charged on top of the original toll fee as a “reprocessing fee,” if they don’t pay within 80 days, the extra fee goes up to $40 for each and every bridge toll left unpaid as well as addition to a notice of civil penalty, which can add up- one 64 year old woman from Kirkland was forced to pay $3,000 in fines and tolls for 65 unpaid 520 crossings she did not pay for because she thought her son had already done it. Yikes.
For months before the toll system was even ready for action, the Washington State Department of Transportation plastered the city in advertisements and information prepping drivers for the toll. Bill the Nye the Science Guy was hired by the department at a rate of about $4,000 state dollars a day to act as the face of the project and explain the toll process in commercials and radio announcements, on billboards and print ads, and even on cardboard cutouts and about $42,300 was spent by the department on an informational web video about the project. WSDOT spent millions that many believe could have gone towards the actual bridge construction, saving on the need for tolls, just to get the word out in such a shiny campaign and even once that money was spent, didn’t have the tolling system fully prepared yet, leaving the city to wait in confusion for the toll to begin (or hope that it wouldn’t).
The new bridge is supposed to be safer and more capable of withstanding major earthquakes and windstorms than the previous one and plans to accommodate light rail in the future. In 2009, a budget of $4.65 billion was set by the state legislature for the bridge project- which includes not only building the new bridge itself, but also goes towards creating a new pontoon construction facility and pontoons in Grays Harbor, designing the west side of the corridor, and funding the Eastside Transit and HOV project which is meant to improve traffic conditions for Bellevue, Redmond and Kirkland by expanding to a six-lane corridor with two main lanes, a transit/HOV lane going each direction, a bike and pedestrian path, wider shoulders, an improved park and ride, more transit stops and a direct-access carpool/transit ramp to 108th Ave NE in Bellevue.
Even though this new 520 bridge is scheduled to be finished in 2014, the legislation which authorized the current 520 toll includes no end date, and drivers will likely be taxed on this drive until the bonds for the project are paid off. The average rush hour “Good to Go” toll price began around the price of a latte, in early July of this year increased 2.5 percent, and is expected to increase the same amount three more times before 2015.
Seattlites and Eastsiders who don’t want to waste their wallets on the toll however, may choose to take I-90 instead of the 520 bridge. Even in the first day 520 tolling began, traffic on I-90 increased by about 20 percent, while traffic on 520 decreased by about 50 percent. These changes have allowed for drivers to choose their method of transport between the Eastside and Seattle based either upon traffic or the toll, essentially giving them the option to either save money or save time.
Drivers can even calculate this decision using one of several applications such as 520 or I-90, Toll Avoider, SR-520 Toll Assistant, or Toll Troll, a free app designed by FNX Studios in Bellevue, which allows users to choose how much time they would need to save in order for it to be worth to them fork over the toll, and then check back each time they are considering to see if the app’s animated troll looks either happy, because the projected commute would reach that amount, or angry, because the app has projected that the driver would not save enough time to skip I-90 for the toll.
Avoiding the 520 toll now might not pay off in the long run however, as the fewer drivers there crossing the bridge and paying the fee now, the longer it will take to pay off the bridge’s bonds, therefore making it less likely that the toll will be removed in the next few years and more likely that its price will be raised even more to make up for the loss in toll funds. As traffic increases on I-90 as well, drivers may end up spending more money in gas waiting to get across than they would simply avoiding the additional traffic time by paying the toll on 520.