Toll By Plate - A Unique Challenge for RVers!

[HadEnough]

How on Earth is everyone handling all these automatic tolls everywhere throughout the East Coast??

They are now everywhere.

As I travel from place to place, they snap my plate and that's that. I have no way of getting information on what be I owe. They do not contact you at your mailing address, nothing. Actually, Massachusetts did send a bill to my mailing address, but that's it.

How does anyone know what they owe and who they owe if they are a traveler?

I have cash ready to pay, but they laid off all the toll booth workers and replaced them with machines.

[valhalla360]

dodge guy wrote:


Exactly my point. It was created as a way to provide income for itself. At least it used to be. Then it grew and people started taking money from it. Now they are just running away with toll increases and there is never enough money for a project! Hmmm! Get rid of them and things will still run as they are without taking anymore $$$$ from he public that aren't necessary.

The original toll roads were pure profit making private ventures. Only newer public toll roads try (and usually fail) to make enough money to pay for the road.

Get rid of the tolls and the money to keep them up still has to come from somewhere.

[JIMNLIN]

One of Oklahoma turnpikes gate near me has a non attended coin toss bucket. I can't count the times someone is out of their vehicle and is crawling around underneath the vehicle looking for dropped coins that didn't go into the bucket or a poor old granny looking through her purse for her change purse looking for the right coins for the toll. Or the toll is 1.15 and all you have is quarters and dimes......throwing in 3 dollars in change still won't give you a green light and those people just sit there. And your stuck 8 cars back.

I use Oklahoma's Pike Pass and use the through lane and it's good on KS Turnpike.

We use the E-470 pike to get around Denver going and coming on I-70/I-25. The bill from a picture of our tag usually come 90 days later. Great system as there is no stopping.

[Mr_Mark1]

I received my first toll bill by mail recently. Back in April, I was heading north from TN through KY and crossed a bridge in IN that uses the license plate photo system. I was pulling my tow vehicle and the picture shows the motorhome license plate along with the tow vehicles plate.

Well, I missed the first notice as I was traveling (housekeeper didn't know it was important) and then I missed the second notice.

The fee for the bridge toll was $12.00 then the second toll notice late fee was $5.00. The third notice is called a 'violation' notice and was $25.00.

Total: $42.00. Now I'll be more conscience to the notices. I paid the final invoice on 8/30/17 that was originally initiated on April 1st.

I noticed on the bill that the Riverlink system is based out of Austin, TX.

The toll booth on the bridge that connects San Diego to Coronado Island was finally removed a couple of years ago. I'm not sure how long it was there but I guess there is light at the end of the tunnel on some toll roads/bridges. :R

MM.

[DiskDoctr]

CavemanCharlie wrote:
I didn't read this whole thread. I just stay out of states that have toll roads. But, I never go far from home anyway so it's easy for me.

As for the toll both worker making 30k a year. That comes to about 15 bucks a hour. Do they really make that much ? Where can I find a nice cushy job that pays like that ?

PA Turnpike AVERAGE is $28,000/yr according to google. Much more for many, I'm sure. Not bad for even less than McDonalds worker 😞

They have been raising to tolls to pay for the wages here. Good thing they will go to no toll booth workers and cut the tolls by 40% :R (Not holding my breath!)

[CA_Traveler]

DE Bishop,

The GG bridge claimed the payback is much sooner than you suggested. All bridges have FasTrak so the systems are already in place. I believe the GG toll takers had a option of other jobs including other bridges that still have toll takers.

Perhaps there is GG info on the pros/cons of no toll takers. One obvious benefit is faster traffic flow.

[D_E_Bishop]

valhalla360 wrote:
It's really a no brainer.

If a toll taker makes $30k per year, reality with overhead is more like $90k/yr

Plus you still need to equip the booth with register, credit card machine, heating and cooling, etc...

A reader fully installed might run $20-30k with minimal ongoing costs.

Obviously, they want you to set up an account so the billing is automated because it does cost more to mail you a letter. Hence the higher price if you don't proactively pay it off.

I don't know how you figure benefits raise an annual salary of 30K to 90K, on average it is just 50 percent of base salary or in your example 15K additional and you forgot to mention the payback time for the equipment and added costs of mailing the bill and the second third and forth reminders to pay.

From my experience it's a shell game of hide the costs that the vendors/contractors use to get municipalities to sign a contract with them to run the system. Greater savings comes in the far distant future when all the current workers have retired and there is no more liability for paying retirements.

[CA_Traveler]

Golden Gate Bridge: North bound free, south bound no toll takers, you don't stop and cannot pay at the bridge. You can pre or post pay at a station or online. I have the FasTrak unit for all bay area bridges with both MH and toad registered and payment is automatic. Pictures are taken and axles counted. Otherwise a bill is sent to the license plate address. Fines start after 2 weeks.

[hawkeye-08]

A few years ago, we got a bill from toll road near Denver. We had not been to Denver, but realized our daughter had passed that way when driving from west coast to east coast. We also got a red light camera ticket from Maryland with a picture of same daughter running a red light at 6am. Gotta love technology. She lives in Maryland now and the truck is in her name so we don't see her tickets anymore... LOL

[dodge_guy]

valhalla360 wrote:

dodge guy wrote:

Most till systems are self supporting. Meaning all the tolls go into the toll system. Get rid of the toll system and you don't need money to pay the toll system. We are already paying for the roads through gas, license and other taxes. So there really is no reason for a toll system except to make money. Ide still like to know where all the interest goes from money put into an ipass account? They deduct $20 from my CC when it gets low. But that $20 sits here for a month or 2 before I touch it. Multiply that by a couple million and what do you get in interest?

Yeah, not even close. Toll collection systems are a small percentage of what is collected. Even so, they typically don't collect enough to fully pay for the road itself.

Unfortunately, gas taxes (primary source for road funding) are often not enough particularly with the cost of urban road projects being crazy expensive...but that leads down a rabbit hole of if the money is being spent wisely so suffice it to say the toll collection system is not where most of the toll money is going.

Exactly my point. It was created as a way to provide income for itself. At least it used to be. Then it grew and people started taking money from it. Now they are just running away with toll increases and there is never enough money for a project! Hmmm! Get rid of them and things will still run as they are without taking anymore $$$$ from he public that aren't necessary.

[SidecarFlip]

mgirardo wrote:

SidecarFlip wrote:
I cannot see how the whole 'pay by plate thing can work for us. Like I said previously, we don't have a front tag to take a picture of and there is no way they can take a picture of my rear plate because it's under my truck camper on the step bumper of my pickup truck.

They'd have to have a camera in the road bed to get a picture. Taking a picture of the front of my truck would net them a vanity plate that says 'Kubota' on it. Thats it. Don't work at all for us here in Michigan.

I believe someone already answered this question, they'd take a picture of the license plate of your trailer and send the bill to the registered owner of the Trailer. The systems are smart enough to know the difference between a solo vehicle and a vehicle towing a trailer.

-Michael

When I go camping with the TC, I'm very rarely towing a trailer. Only time I have a trailer on the back is if I go up north with my quads. My rear only plate is up under the TC. While visible from the rear (which is legal), it's NOT visible unless you are directly behind me so no camera could photograph it. Don'r see how it could work...at all in my case.

[rwgeiser]

E470 is the only toll road in the Denver area that I or Google are aware of.

[tdiller]

moresmoke wrote:

dodge guy wrote:


That's exactly what I do when I head out of IL. I'll take the back roads that travel at 55mph with very little slowing down. Just leaving from my house in the NW burbs of Chicago with my trailer would cost me about $15 one way. That's $30 for a round trip to WI or IA! Do that 2 or 3 trips a year and it's pricey. And the back roads are less crazy than interstate Hwy's.

So which back road would you suggest to get from your place to IN/MI?

I'm not sure of the routes but I left Illinois going counterclockwise around Lake Michigan and was able to avoid the toll roads other than the bridge into the UP. I simply looked at the map and found routes around the tolls. I think I took 47 south to near Joliet then 30 across to 49 then north to 12 and such

[valhalla360]

dodge guy wrote:

Most till systems are self supporting. Meaning all the tolls go into the toll system. Get rid of the toll system and you don't need money to pay the toll system. We are already paying for the roads through gas, license and other taxes. So there really is no reason for a toll system except to make money. Ide still like to know where all the interest goes from money put into an ipass account? They deduct $20 from my CC when it gets low. But that $20 sits here for a month or 2 before I touch it. Multiply that by a couple million and what do you get in interest?

Yeah, not even close. Toll collection systems are a small percentage of what is collected. Even so, they typically don't collect enough to fully pay for the road itself.

Unfortunately, gas taxes (primary source for road funding) are often not enough particularly with the cost of urban road projects being crazy expensive...but that leads down a rabbit hole of if the money is being spent wisely so suffice it to say the toll collection system is not where most of the toll money is going.

[tdiller]

Mortimer Brewster wrote:

tdiller wrote:
Here in the state of Illinois come January you will need an ezpass for each vehicle. Used to be I could list all my vehicles on one pas (motorcycle, truck, car and wife's motorcycle). I could leave the pass in one vehicle and the state would figure out via the plate the account to bill. Now with needing one for each vehicle they will be getting 40 dollars each held in reserve for each pass. I may not use the tollway much so that $40 each could sit a long time.

I don't believe this is quite accurate. People that routinely drive through without a transponder are going to be charged more. These people have multiple cars and one transponder for them. Since there is no penalty, they don't bother switching the transponder to the vehicle they are driving.
The Tollway Authority prefers that each vehicle has its own transponder to reduce the amount of times that they have to look up a plate. If each vehicle had one, it would raise 15 million for the Tollway Authority. As far as I know, they haven't said the number of times it will take to put you into the "penalty" category. The bottom line is they aren't yet requiring each vehicle to have it's own transponder, but I'm sure it's coming.

You are right I looked it up on tollways site. I once got pissed off at the toll system and listed all my means of transport including a kubota tractor and a black percheron horse. Let them try to affix a transponder to the horse.

[valhalla360]

DutchmenSport wrote:
So, say you are from another state, you go through one of those toll sections, and they send you a bill 3 months later. What happens if you do not pay?

I've never encountered one of these toll sections, and I'm avoiding I-65 through Louisville, KY like a passion!

But, what happens if you simply do not pay the bill that comes in the mail?

A couple of potential issues:
- If you drive thru that state again, they can pull you over for the unpaid bill. Not likely for a single time offense but possible.
- They can put it on your credit report.

So, if you never go back to that state and you don't take out any loans, the answer is not much.