Bay Area transportation officials have a plan to raise tolls further on bridges. Have an opinion? You can sound off at public meeting Wednesday morning.
The Bay Area Toll Authority is hearing public comment about the plan in San Francisco and online at 9:35 a.m. Wednesday to take the public’s temperature about a plan to continue raising tolls on seven crossings — the Bay, Antioch, Benicia, Carquinez, Dumbarton, Richmond-San Rafael and San Mateo bridges — starting January 2026. This wouldn’t apply to the Golden Gate Bridge, where tolls are decided by a different authority.
The meeting is at the toll authority boardroom at 375 Beale St. and online via Zoom. You also can join by phone by calling 877-853-5247.
Tolls already are scheduled to rise from $7 to $8 per crossing in Jan. 2025, thanks to a measure that voters approved in 2018.
If finalized, the toll authority’s plan would raise passenger car tolls 50 cents in 2026, then over the following four years at different rates for FasTrak, license plate account holders and those who must be mailed an invoice. By 2030, tolls would reach $10.50 for FasTrak, $10.75 for license plate accounts and $11.50 for invoiced drivers. High-occupancy vehicles pay half the FasTrak rate.
The reason? The bridges need maintenance, paint and improvements, which weren’t covered by the 2018 voter-approved toll increases that paid for other regional transportation needs, said John Goodwin, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which plans and finances regional transportation projects.
Planned bridge projects will cost $1.42 billion in the next 10 years, Goodwin said. That includes $741 million for painting and $345 million for structural integrity projects, such as replacing cables on suspension bridges and the “fenders” that protect the Bay Bridge and others from collisions with passing ships.
Trips across the bridges declined by about 10% after the COVID-19 pandemic, driving revenue declines, Goodwin said. That’s forced the commission to take on $560 million in debt for bridge rehabilitation projects since 2021.
If the commission took out another $600 million to pay for the projects — an alternative to raising tolls — interest alone on debt payments would reach $1.29 billion over financing periods, typically 30 years, according to Goodwin.
The proposed toll hike would raise about $60 million the first year and about $300 million annually in 2030.
The hike also is 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.
The 21-person Bay Area Toll Authority will consider the proposed toll spike during a special meeting on Dec. 9. Napa County Supervisor Alfredo Pedroza, who also serves as chair of both the transportation commission and the toll authority, already has said he supports the plan. The members are appointed by Bay Area cities, counties and federal agencies to represent them on the board.
The proposal is technically separate from recent toll increases across the same bridges.
In 2018, Bay Area voters approved Regional Measure 3, which raised tolls $1 each year starting in 2019. The last of those toll hikes goes into effect in January, bringing the toll for cars and trucks to $8.
The windfall from those tolls was put toward a laundry list of transportation projects around the Bay Area — but not on bridges, Goodwin said. They include extending BART trains to downtown San Jose by 2037, expanding carpool lanes regionally and routing Caltrain commuter rail to the Salesforce Transit Center in downtown San Francisco.
Because the new proposed toll hike would fund bridge projects, the toll authority doesn’t need to ask for voters’ permission, Goodwin said.
Tolls on the iconic Golden Gate Bridge were raised from $8.75 to $9.25 in July for FasTrak users and are projected to climb even higher as post-pandemic traffic continues to lag.
The three most expensive toll crossings in the U.S. are in Virginia and New York, followed by the Golden Gate Bridge. A trip through the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel in Virginia costs motorcycles, cars and trucks $21 during peak season and $16 otherwise.