Drivers are being forced to pay for state’s debt this weekend

Many drivers are going to be forced into paying a toll they would otherwise avoid this weekend.

Right now, if you live in Bellevue and you want to get to downtown Seattle, or maybe you’re in Eastlake and you need to get to the Eastside, you have two main options.

You can hop on the 520 floating bridge and get to the Eastside a little bit faster, but you’ll end up paying a toll (which can be annoyingly expensive depending on the time of day you go). Or, you can drive over the I-90 floating bridge, avoid the toll, but spend a little extra time on the road.

Doesn’t this prove Seattle bike lanes are dangerous?

You have the power to decide what you want to do.

This weekend? Not so much.

The Blue Angels are in town. And during practice and Seafair weekend, they’ll be closing the I-90 floating bridge.

“With Seafair and the Blue Angels, we do close I-90,” said Patty Rubstello, director of toll operations for the Washington State Department of Transportation. “It’s about safety. [For] the driver. [That’s] why I-90 gets closed every year for the Blue Angels.”

Surely the state will turn off the toll on 520 because otherwise it would be forcing drivers to take it. The state wouldn’t want to steal people’s money &#8212 particularly people who can’t afford it and are just trying to get to their minimum wage job without wasting gas going to an alternate, much longer route.

“It does stay as a toll facility whether we have closures on I-90 or not,” Rubstello said.

Shame on them for this.

Why wouldn’t they give drivers a break for a closure they’re creating? They’re essentially forcing the driver’s hand on this.

“We have debt we have to pay for the rebuild of 520, so that’s what those tolls are going towards, is paying off that debt,” Rubstello explained.

So in other words, the state is taking money it wouldn’t normally have by pushing people to a toll that most of you would think would be turned off if I-90 is closed.

Now the only way the state would turn off the tolling, officials claim, is that if there’s an emergency and you’re being forced onto that route. This seems like you’re forcing people onto the route, but Rubstello says no.

“Because people aren’t being forced directly, without a choice. In this case people have alternatives.” She said people can plan ahead and should be aware of the event because it happens every year.

She’s technically right. If you’re going from Seattle to Bellevue, you could go north on I-5, hop on 522 east through Bothell, then south on I-405. I mean, it’ll take you 45 minutes instead of 11 minutes, but you know, you can do that.

What a joke.