After 20 years, drivers can finally say good riddance to the Ga. 400 toll.
Toll collections cease before midnight Friday. Lane restriping and sign removal have already begun, and demolition of the toll plaza will start in January. The entire project is expected to cost $4.5 million (demolition alone costs $3.5 million) and be completed in the fall of 2014.
Drivers can now use three lanes in each direction for free. However, the speed limit will be reduced to 45 mph through the construction zone while the work is in progress, and traffic will be rerouted through the Cruise Card lanes.
Once the project is finished, the speed limit will be bumped up to 55 mph again.
Don’t start gloating just yet, though. The State Road and Tollway Authority anticipates that up to 18 percent more traffic will be attracted to the highway now that it offers motorists a free ride.
GA. 400 TIMELINE
1983: The proposal to build a 6.4-mile extension of Ga. 400 from I-285 through Buckhead to I-85 comes up for its first vote before the Atlanta City Council. The council deadlocks, effectively killing the proposal.
1988: The City Council votes to ban all toll roads inside the city limits — a move aimed expressly at shutting down the Ga. 400 extension. The same year, state and federal officials put in writing a clear mandate: Ga. 400 toll revenues would be used only for the 6.2-mile Ga. 400 extension inside the Perimeter, to acquire land and pay for design, construction and "costs necessary for the proper operation, maintenance, and debt service."
May 16, 1989: The Ga. 400 extension passes the City Council. The council allows tolls but limits them to 50 cents.
1991: The State Road and Tollway Authority approves sale of $96.1 million on bonds to help pay for the Ga. 400 project. The bonds will be paid off in 20 years — in June 2011 — from toll revenue.
1993: After three years of construction, the Ga. 400 extension opens to traffic.
2010: With the bonds nearly paid off, rumors simmer that the state won't take down the toll after all. Nathan Deal, during his campaign for governor, says he will work to bring down the toll by 2011.
2010: Then-Gov. Sonny Perdue announces that the toll will continue. He says the state cannot afford to lose the revenue. He promises a list of Ga. 400 projects will be built with the added money.
2011: Deal, now governor, says that ending the toll would break a contract; it will have to stay in place.
2012: Mistrust of government, fueled by the Ga. 400 toll drama, endangers a $7.2 billion transportation referendum in metro Atlanta. A week and a half before the referendum, Deal announces that the toll will come down in 2013 after all. Voters reject the referendum anyway.
Nov. 22, 2013: Ga. 400 tolls officially end.
January 2014: Toll demolition is expected to begin. It will last through late 2014, at a cost of $3.5 million.
BY THE NUMBERS
600 pounds — The weight of a vault full of coins, which are collected in a tunnel underneath the electronic toll machines. (Each of the 14 toll lanes has its own vault beneath it.)
$2,200 — About how much money in coins each vault holds.
500-600 feet — The approximate length of the tunnel beneath the toll lanes where vaults are kept.
120,000 — The average number of vehicles that go through the toll plaza every weekday.
$20 million — The average amount of tolls collected annually.
46 — The number of contracted toll plaza workers whose positions have been eliminated. Four State Road and Tollway Authority workers at the site also saw their jobs nixed.
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