So the Ga. 400 toll may end as promised after all -- before it starts again. A short time later.
Many toll payers were dismayed last fall, if less than shocked, when the State Road and Tollway Authority board voided a 20-year-old promise and voted to continue its revenue stream of quarters. The toll was originally to expire after July 1, 2011, after the road's construction was paid off.
Now, in conjunction with construction to start June 24 at the toll plaza, the tollway authority is considering a temporary suspension of the toll. Some who backed the decision to extend the toll reasoned that the promise to end the original toll could be kept -- and the money, too.
SRTA spokeswoman Malika Reed Wilkins said the suspension would be only "from a traffic management standpoint" related to the construction. She said no decision had been made about whether or how long to suspend the toll, whether for a weekend or a week but that it could coincide with the end of the bond payments.
The board, chaired by Gov. Nathan Deal, will make the decision June 20. A spokeswoman for Deal said the governor was waiting to hear the staff's recommendation.
The construction at Ga. 400 is related to the impending opening of another toll project, on I-85 in Gwinnett County, slated for later this summer. The Ga. 400 toll technology is being retooled so that Ga. 400 Cruise Card holders and I-85 Peach Pass holders will both be able to use the Cruise Card lanes. When the I-85 toll lane opens, both will be able to use that, too.
The toll technology upgrade at the Ga. 400 plaza is expected to take about a weekend.
During that weekend, from 8 p.m. June 24 to 5 a.m. June 27, the Cruise Card lanes will shut completely, Reed Wilkins said. Drivers are advised to avoid the route.
Throughout July, SRTA also will make upgrades to the cash lanes, including new toll gate arms, new video cameras, new cash collectors, and fixing a tollbooth that endured a crash recently, Reed Wilkins said. The current equipment is so old that replacement parts are no longer readily available, Reed Wilkins said.
That construction could result in one cash lane being closed in each direction.
The whole construction operation will cost between $2.2 million and $3 million, Reed Wilkins said.
The idea of keeping the promise of taking down the toll in 2011, at least technically, by suspending it was championed by former Gov. Sonny Perdue, who led the vote to extend the toll last year. "The fact is, I am viewing this as a new toll," he said then, after the board's vote. He said he'd ordered the staff to look into it, "Upon the suggestion of people who feel that their word’s on the line about that."
The new toll was needed, Perdue said, to accommodate unexpected growth, and to build projects that couldn't be paid for otherwise. The biggest of those projects, one expanding the interchange of I-85 and Ga. 400, just came in far under the state's early estimate, with contractors bidding $21.4 million, as opposed to the authority's $40 million estimate.
Average daily collections for Ga. 400 are approximately $54,000, according to the tollway authority.
Indeed, the Atlanta area is headed toward more tolls, not less. The piece of Ga. 400 inside the Perimeter has been a raging success, except for the congestion. Extra toll money and interest have piled up, and some of it has been used to figure out how to expand toll lanes in the region, including the one on I-85.
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