Bay Area Open Roads Without Toll Booths, MTC Considers Next Year

REDWOOD CITY, CA -- All electronic tolling could be the wave of the future on all seven California-owned bridges in the San Francisco Bay Area by 2022.

The Metropolitan Transportation District, working under the auspices of the Bay Area Toll Authority, is researching three options for handling traffic and congestion in the region.

1. Do nothing and maintain the status quo of having staffed booths.
2. Turn the toll zones into all electronic like the Golden Gate Bridge.
3. Go all electronic and remove the booths and keep the overhead gantries to monitor motorists crossing.

The latter would require a $50 million investment. Staffing at the booths costs $5 million a year, an amount "we would save on" over the long haul, MTC spokesman John Goodwin said.

The option may be made early next year.

Would any of these choices quell the anger among disgruntled motorists?

"We'll always have irritated drivers," Goodwin said.

Just like the Bay Area will always see "distracted drivers," according to California Highway Patrol.

CHP Redwood City spokesman Art Montiel said there's the real problem with traffic safety. But the Toll Authority in its commissioned study with an engineering group in 2015 pointed out how the number of "toll plaza accidents" has been on a steady climb in the last decade.

It's unclear whether providing the open road to motorists will reduce emissions in the Bay Area's highly congested region.

"We need time to look at the data. Our main focus is to get people off the road," Bay Area Air Quality Management District spokeswoman Kristine Roselius said. The agency tasked with ensuring the public safety through clean air would like to see more telecommuting and a greater use of mass transit as solid options for Bay Area workers. Whether the air quality improves if motorists are allowed to move through the toll gates without stopping to pay remains to be seen.

"Traffic is a complicated issue in the Bay Area," Roselius said, adding how each bridge has its own traffic dynamic.

The Bay Area Toll Authority, along with the California Department of Transportation, operates a blend of cash and electronic toll collection lanes on the bridges spanning from the Richmond-San Rafael in the north to Dumbarton in the south.

--Image courtesy of Kathryn Reed