More Toll Hikes Proposed for 7 Bay Area Bridges

North Bay Leadership Council’s CEO, Joanne Webster, was quoted in an article on toll hikes for the Bay Area. The article is written by Adrian Rodriguez and Kristin J Bender.

“Managers of the Bay Area’s seven state-owned bridges — including the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge — are proposing a five-year toll increase plan to help fund a 10-year $1.9 billion capital improvement program.

The proposal is separate from Regional Measure 3, the 2018 ballot measure that raised tolls to support highway and transit projects to reduce traffic. The last increase from that voter-approved toll hike takes effect Jan. 1, raising the price to cross bridges to $8 for most drivers.

The new proposal, introduced at a Bay Area Toll Authority meeting Oct. 23, would increase tolls up to $11.50 for some users by 2030.

The authority recently proposed raising tolls for FasTrak drivers to $8.50 starting in January 2026 to cross the Bay, Antioch, Benicia, Carquinez, Dumbarton, Richmond-San Rafael and San Mateo bridges. FasTrak users would then see an increase to $9 in 2027, $9.50 in 2028, $10 in 2029 and $10.50 in 2030. Tolls could be even higher for vehicles without transponders.

The Golden Gate Bridge is not one of the state-owned bridges.

Since 2021, the authority has been borrowing money to keep up with maintenance as construction costs continue to climb faster than inflation, said Derek Hansel, chief financial officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which manages the state-owned bridge system.

The proposed toll hike would raise about $60 million of additional revenue in the first year and about $300 million annually when tolls go up $2.50 in 2030.

Hansel said staff expect to spend around $740 million on steel painting and corrosion protection alone over the next 10 years. Prep work and painting is needed every year, he said.

“These bridges exist in a pretty harsh marine environment,” Hansel said. “That paint is critical to them staying structurally sound.”

An additional $690 million is programmed for bridge integrity, operation and safety projects, he said.

All this maintenance work should be on a pay-as-you-go basis, Hansel said. The agency needs to be in a position to build capital reserves for “unanticipated needs, but we’re certainly not there today,” he said.

MTC officials say the hikes are also aimed at encouraging more customers to pay electronically with FasTrak toll readers. The toll readers have a lower administrative cost than payment through a license plate account or returning a payment with an invoice through the mail.

About 10 million drivers pass through a toll plaza on one of the seven bridges every month, but a 10% reduction in bridge users since the pandemic has also played a part in the proposed toll hikes.

“Even before the pandemic we knew that we would have to do a toll increase for maintenance: paint, structural preservation, all kinds of things,” said MTC spokesperson John Goodwin, adding that an initial hike wasn’t expected until 2027, but the pandemic accelerated the need for more incoming cash.

Goodwin said drivers who would be affected the most are the daily bridge users, but that is a low number. According to MTC data from last October, just 3% of all bridge users crossed daily.

“I’m sensitive to the overall cost of living in the Bay Area,” Napa County Supervisor Alfredo Pedroza, who also is chair of both the transportation commission and the toll authority. “Working families really feel the impact, not just in transportation but back at home with utilities, groceries, children. This one is hard. But it’s the right thing to do.”

Joanne Webster, president and chief executive officer of the North Bay Leadership Council in Petaluma, said she and her colleagues have been asking bridge managers for traffic relief on the Richmond-San Rafael bridge for years.

Webster said more than 80,000 drivers cross the span every day to get to work in Marin, Sonoma and beyond.

“They are frustrated when they arrive on the job,” Webster said. “I don’t blame them; time is money. It’s one thing to raise the cost of crossing the bridge and see improvements in your commute. But the toll hike coupled with huge gridlock just adds to the hardship.”

Sonoma County Supervisor David Rabbitt is a member of the BATA and MTC boards. Rabbitt is also on the board of the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District, which approved its own five-year toll hike for the iconic span earlier this year.

Tolls on the Golden Gate were raised from $8.75 to $9.25 in July for FasTrak users. The plan will raise rates 50 cents annually through 2028. The program is expected to net an additional $139 million in revenue to help narrow a projected $220 million five-year deficit brought on by the pandemic.

Rabbitt said all-electronic tolling has given the Golden Gate Bridge district the opportunity to increase tolls marginally with little protest. He said the toll revenue builds year over year.

“I think it’s better that we keep up with inflation — and keep up instead of waiting, falling behind, and then hitting people with a big lump sum,” Rabbitt said.

“It’s worked really well” for the Golden Gate district, Rabbitt said. “I hope we can replicate that on the state bridges. It will give us a lot more flexibility to maintain on a regular basis without having to worry about where those dollars are coming from.”

The toll authority and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission ask the public to weigh in on the proposed toll increase during a comment period that begins Monday and ends at 5 p.m. Dec. 3. Comments can be sent by email to info@bayareametro.gov.

Authorities plan to hold a public webinar from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Nov. 13 to present more details about the proposed toll hikes. A public hearing is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Nov. 20 in San Francisco.”