Out of state drivers getting a free ride on 520 bridge
Oct 18, 2012, 3:08 PM | Updated: Oct 19, 2012, 9:39 am
About $1.6 million in tolls is unpaid thanks to bills that were never sent out. (AP Photo)
(AP Photo)
Nearly a year into the new tolling program on the 520 bridge there are still a few kinks in the system and some of those issues may never be worked out.
“Through our year end work of accounting we found about 350,000 transactions, which is about 2 percent of our trips going across the bridge, that we need to reprocess,” says Craig Stone, Director of the Toll Division at the Washington State Department of Transportation.
Those tolls amount to about $1.6 million in bills that were never sent out. They accrued from trips across both the SR 520 and the Tacoma Narrows Bridges.
Around a third of the bills are attached to Washington specialty plates the system didn’t recognize. The other two thirds are connected with drivers from out of state.
“When we sent out information to say, ‘Here’s a license plate from your state. Please provide us the owner’s information’ they weren’t responding,” says Stone.
WSDOT discovered that Electronic Transaction Consultants Corporation, the company contracted to process the tolls, did not have agreements in place with Connecticut, Hawaii, or California.
Stone says they had earlier asked E.T.C.C. to make sure they did work things out with California because that is where a large number of our visitors travel from. The company did not follow through until WSDOT caught the unpaid bills.
“It’s unacceptable that we had this situation, but I’m feeling that we’ve addressed it and they’ve made the corrections needed so that we can move forward,” Stone says.
There is no additional cost to the state to process the tolls late, so Stone says there won’t be any kind of penalties for E.T.C.C., either.
While an agreement with California has now been worked out, there is still an issue sending toll bills to Connecticut drivers.
“Turns out, kind of uniquely, that Connecticut does not work with any state,” says Stone, “even ones like New York kind of close to them.”
Washington does not see droves of Connecticut drivers frequenting our roadways, but many who do come here can cross our bridges as many times as they’d like and never pay a dime.
What happens with Hawaii drivers is still up in the air. Stone says they are still trying to work things out with that state.
