Delays and glitches have plagued the planned start of next-generation highway tolling in Washington, but transportation officials have new confidence the problems are under control.
In the short term, that means a resumption of $52 fines for crossing the Tacoma Narrows bridge without paying, now that officials believe the tickets will be going to the right people.
In the slightly longer term, it means an end to those tickets. Drivers caught on camera will be mailed bills for $5.50 tolls instead of fines. Only if they don’t pay up will they be ticketed.
The pay-by-mail system, giving drivers going east across the Narrows a third choice in addition to a cash toll and an electronic sticker, has been repeatedly delayed by difficulties with the state’s major new tolling project on the state Route 520 floating bridge. On Thursday, the Department of Transportation gave that project a new deadline of December to start.
“We’ve put the system through very rigorous examinations and tests, and it has performed very well,” Deputy Transportation Secretary David Dye said.
The statewide system will go through a monthlong dress rehearsal, as recommended by a panel of experts. It will culminate in the start of the pay-by-mail system on the Narrows bridge and then, up to two weeks later, the first tolls on the 520 bridge across Lake Washington.
The panel’s review, out this week, says the state originally set an unrealistic schedule calling for the new statewide tolling system by late 2010. The committee said later plans to start by June 2011 also depended on too-aggressive deadlines, worsened by missteps by contractor Electronic Transaction Consultants Corp., including not hiring enough staff.
ETCC says it has bulked up its Seattle staff to more than 100 and expects to more than double that number by December.
The state signed a five-year, $23 million contract with ETCC – based in Richardson, Texas – to bring all toll projects under the management of a single contractor.
GOOD TO GO AGAIN?
The changeover to the new contractor for the Narrows bridge this February led to a pause in sending out tickets, then a deluge of tens of thousands of tickets to clear the backlog. Drivers complained they were being cited even though they were Good to Go customers with up-to-date accounts. Others couldn’t update their accounts due to technical problems.
The state has just a 60-day window to issue a fine to a driver, so it ended up dismissing those tickets, including valid ones. Plenty of people crossed the bridge for free between mid-February and early July.
The cost: more than $200,000 in lost revenue, WSDOT estimates.
The agency said it has notified the contractor it will have to pay that money, on top of nearly $2 million through June that ETCC must forgo due to other delays and problems.
But WSDOT also said Thursday the contractor has now weeded out drivers who were wrongly targeted by the computers and is about ready to start sending out tickets to the rest.
Tickets will go to drivers whose license plates have been caught on camera since July 7. They will hit the mail around Labor Day.
“If you’ve cheated,” Dye said, “we’re going to get you.”
If you haven’t cheated, make sure your Good to Go account is updated. Accounts without enough money or with old license plate numbers caused some of the problems this spring – most of the problems, ETCC maintains.
“The vast majority of those very honestly was just customers keeping it up to date,” ETCC spokeswoman Carla Kienast said Thursday. “There were some system glitches, yes, and there were some other factors that came into it.”
“We need to get everybody to update their accounts,” Kienast said. “After Labor Day, those letters are going to be going out and we want people to pay the toll instead of having to deal with the infraction notice.”
Jordan Schrader: 360-786-1826 jordan.schrader@ thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/politics
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