Starting tonight, drivers on Ga. 400 can ignore the toll booth and not get in trouble.
The state has granted a one-week respite on tolls -- beginning at 8 p.m. -- to allow construction workers to make changes to the Cruise Card system over the weekend. It will also allow the state to say it kept a promise, made 20 years ago when that stretch of Ga. 400 was first built, to terminate the toll once the road's construction was paid off this summer. There's only one catch: The tolls resume on July 1.
If only the policy on the new I-85 HOV toll was so clear.
The I-85 project is a new toll on the HOV lane from Chamblee Tucker Road to Old Peachtree Road, scheduled to open later this summer. As expected, the State Road and Tollway Authority Board on Monday set the toll fee to range from 10 cents a mile to 90 cents, depending on congestion. But the authority made new policy that may affect such lanes in Georgia far into the future: There will be no toll cap at all if "conditions" on the lane "require" the fee to rise higher.
SRTA staff said the provision was made in case an accident jammed traffic and that it would be invoked "not often if at all."
The state is treading new ground with the I-85 toll lane, which will be all electronic. Drivers must register for accounts and place toll transponders in their windshields, as they do now on Ga. 400's Cruise Card lanes. After the I-85 project opens, drivers should be able to use the same transponder on both roads, according to SRTA. Starting this weekend, the Cruise Card will be renamed a Peach Pass.
In order to merge the I-85 and Ga. 400 toll technologies, state contractors are changing out the toll technology at the Ga. 400 toll plaza this weekend, weather permitting.
That became an additional reason to suspend the Ga. 400 toll, for traffic management this weekend, said Gov. Nathan Deal, who chairs the authority. But the idea of a suspension was first championed in the heat of controversy last year for other reasons.
The decision to suspend the Ga. 400 toll, Deal said, "was to honor the governor’s promise from last year." He was referring to former Gov. Sonny Perdue, who as head of the authority, said the 20-year-old promise to end the Ga. 400 toll when the road was paid off in 2011 could be recognized with a toll suspension. Upon restarting the toll, Perdue said then, "I’m calling it a new toll."
The toll is scheduled to be suspended from 8 p.m. Friday to 8 p.m. Friday, July 1. In the month following, individual cash lanes may be closed as the state replaces enforcement cameras.
According to SRTA, the Ga. 400 toll brings in an average $54,000 per day.
It's unclear just how much the I-85 toll lane will collect.. The purpose of that project is not to make money, but to create one lane on the highway where desperate drivers can find reliably moving traffic. When congestion goes up, the price goes up, always culling out enough people that the lane can stay mobile. SRTA staff said they expect the average trip to be six to seven miles, costing less than $5.
The SRTA board's resolution on the toll range approved Monday stated that the authority's director can lift the 90-cent-per-mile cap entirely "if conditions on the I-85 Express Lanes require that a rate be set that is outside of the initial range ... for that period of time needed to meet the goals of lane management." The rates revert to 90 cents or below "as soon as the traffic conditions permit."
"We hope that will never have to happen," Deal said after the vote. "But it was a safeguard in the event of unusual circumstances ... we don’t think it will occur."
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