Local
Bay Area Bridge Tolls to Hit $10 as Open-Road Conversion Begins
Tolls on the region's seven state-owned bridges will rise to as much as $10 per crossing in January under a new tiered system, while crews begin replacing toll booths with open-road gantries. The changes are meant to fund maintenance and speed traffic, but some drivers say the hikes are too steep.
Drivers crossing the Bay Area's seven state-owned bridges will soon pay up to $10 per trip under a new tiered tolling system that takes effect in January, part of a broader overhaul that will eventually eliminate traditional toll booths in favor of open-road electronic collection.
The rate structure, approved by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, charges $9 for FasTrak users with windshield transponders, $9.25 for those with pre-paid license plate accounts, and $10 for motorists who receive an invoice in the mail. The tiered pricing is designed to encourage more drivers to use FasTrak, which is cheaper for the agency to administer than mailing invoices.
"FasTrak usage is sadly not ubiquitous," said John Goodwin, a spokesperson for the MTC, which oversees tolling and bridge rehabilitation. He estimated that about three-quarters of bridge drivers use the system. MTC data shows transponder tags were read on 74% of all crossings between July 1 and Sept. 30 of this year.
The holdouts who rely on invoices create an economic drag because it costs time and money to look up license plates in DMV databases and send paper bills, Goodwin said. In a small number of cases, bridge cameras cannot capture license plate characters.
Widespread FasTrak adoption is central to the coming revolution in bridge travel. Crews will demolish rows of toll booths and replace them with open runways where cameras and sensors mounted on gantries read tags as drivers pass, allowing vehicles to cross city borders and waterways without stopping.
The work is already underway on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, which is scheduled to close this weekend so crews can hoist a metal structure over the roadway. That span will become the region's first all-lane open-road bridge after Caltrans tears down its toll booths in April, enabling smoother traffic flow.
The Antioch and Carquinez bridges will convert to open-road tolling in 2027, followed by the Benicia-Martinez, San Mateo and Dumbarton bridges in 2028. Caltrans is saving the Bay Bridge for last.
Meanwhile, tolls will keep rising. Maintaining the massive structuresâsome approaching their centennialâis costly. Paint chips off aging beams and trusses, exposing raw steel to the briny marine environment. Cables must be turned inside out for inspections, and fenders on concrete piers come due for replacement. Since tolls fund this work, officials plan incremental increases. By 2030, FasTrak users will pay $10.50 per crossing, while invoice charges will reach $11.50.
That is too high for Frank Remlinger of Vallejo, who crosses two bridges daily to commute to San Francisco. "It's Satanic," Remlinger said of the upcoming hikes as he charged his Tesla at El Cerrito Plaza.
Sunshine Machob of Oakland shared his frustration. Both argued the MTC could charge $5 or $6 per crossingâa fairer rate, they saidâand still meet maintenance needs for all seven bridges.
Goodwin countered that repairs and upkeep for major infrastructure cost more than people typically imagine. "I don't really know how to answer to charges of Satanism," he said. "But it might be equally devilish to not have bridges at all. It is a lot less expensive to preserve our bridges than to rebuild them."
Tairat Asuni of Hercules agreed tolls are high but said she understands the need for public investment. "It's a lot alreadyâI guess I'm just cheap," Asuni laughed. Then she paused. "I guess if $10 is what we have to pay to keep the bridges safe, then I say go for it."