Multi-$billion toll projects move in Seattle WA - 520 floating bridge (UPDATED)

Legislation has been passed in Washington state that allows two huge toll projects to proceed in the Seattle metro area - state route 520 (WA520) floating bridge replacement and state route 99 (WA99) Alaskan Way toll tunnel. Washington state department of transportation (WSDOT) plan to issue a request for proposals (RFP) for a 520 toll system and customer service. They plan to begin tolls on the 520 Evergreen Point Bridge in less than 18 months - in the fall of 2010.

This bridge was tolled from when it opened in August 1963 until June 1979 when tolls were ended.

Legislation just signed into law (SB5768) also enables a doubledeck two-on-two lane toll tunnel to be bored deep under the Seattle central business district to replace the troubled Alaskan Way viaduct. Both will be traditional public toll projects with governments raising the capiital and taking the traffic and revenue risk, not concessions. We'll report on the Alaskan Way project separately.

The WA520 project is a major advance in that it will be the first time in the US that tolls are imposed on an existing untolled bridge. In an innovative approach WSDOT will use an all-electronic toll (AET) system covering both directions of traffic. There will be a gantry for mounting overhead equipment on the eastern end of the bridge and a support 'pad' on the eastern shore.

The toll system will apply time-of-day variable pricing to manage traffic and to begin generating an early revenue stream for the construction of a tolled replacement span.

Work on the new span could start 2012 and open in about 2016, at which time a new toll system would be implemented.

WA520 is one of two (the other being I-90) major links between Seattle and the major 'Eastside' areas such as Medina, Kirkland, Bellevue and Redmond across Lake Washington. (see map nearby)

Time-of-day variable tolls will aim to reduce peak period traffic volumes by 11 to 18% from present levels, reducing delays and congestion.

Dynamic pricing was rejected since routing decisions need to be made so long before the chosen toll point is reached there was a danger the toll would have changed in the meantime.

WSDOT wants to offer HOV3 carpoolers a discounted toll but has not yet worked out how to identify and verify carpools without a separate carpool lane - for which it is difficult to provide the space.

The toll procurement will make use of the SeGo sticker tags already used on toll projects in Washington state under the brandname Good To Go. That will make it interoperable with electronic tolls on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and the WA167 HOT lanes.

The procurement will also involve construction and design of customer service centers to service motorists - one on each side of the Lake for walk-in as well as telephone and internet service.

Tolls for cars are likely to vary between $1.00 and $3.80 per crossing, according to the environmental assessment analysis. The body with the power to set tolls in Washington state is the state transportation commission and it hasn't received any formal recommendations yet.

Sticker tags work "extremely well"

David Pope toll systems development manager at WSDOT tells us the sticker tag based toll system at the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and WA167 HOT Lanes "works extremely well." So it makes sense to extend that to the 520 Bridge. Unlike the two established toll projects however there will also be tolls based on license plate reads - video tolling. (Tacoma Narrows has cash booths to the right of the open road transponder lanes, and WA167 is transponder-only.)

Pope says they are leaning toward three toll rates - peak, off-peak and an off-off-peak rate at night and other very lightly trafficked times.

"We want to keep it simple, so long as it does the job. People like it to be predictable," says Pope.

Loop-based axle counting vehicle classification is going to be a challenge because the toll point cannot be on pavement on the approaches. The approaches will be subject to changing traffic patterns 2012 to 2016 in connection with the construction of the replacement bridge immediately alongside.

"We don't want to have to move the toll equipment - readers, and cameras and lights, and the VDAC (vehicle detection and classifcation). The only place to put it is on the old bridge structure itself."

Boat access for techs?

Some ingenuity will be needed servicing the toll equipment because there's nowhere for a service truck to park on the bridge. The techs, it seems to us, will have to travel  to the toll gantry with tools and replacement parts by a small speed boat and shin up a ladder from the water to the toll structure above the bridge and use an electric hoist for lifting their gear.

Jacobs and IBI group are the most prominent consultants working for WSDOT on the tolling.

How to get public support for tolling existing facility

We asked Pope how they managed to gain public acceptance of tolling an existing facility, which many say is a hopeless political task. Conventional wisdom has it you can only get away with tolls on a new facility. On the 520 bridge for perhaps the first time in American history there's acceptance of tolling an old facility.

Says Pope: "It's been a long time (gaining consensus) but I think the key is to focus on the benefits of pricing - quicker, more reliable rides, less sitting in traffic, no stop & go."

Advocates of early tolling also pointed out that tolls on the new bridge would not need to be as high if a revenue stream was tapped well before it opened.

The tolling of the 520 bridge is getting federal funds under the Urban Partnerships program. Federal grants of up to $154m are available. About half is going for new buses and improved ferry services to carry some of the people displaced from cars by tolls.

$86m is available for toll and traffic management systems.

The 520 road between I-4 and I-405 carries an average 110k vehicles a day. It is only 2+2 lanes. Not many such 4-lane expressways carry more than 80k veh/day average.

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/LkWaMgt/library.htm

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/operations/tolling

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Partners/Build520
 
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/LkWaMgt
 
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/SR520Bridge

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/Viaduct/

BACKGROUND: Seattle metro area or Puget Sound region had 3.51m population in 2006 and the transport planning is based on projections of 3.69m in 2010 and 3.97m in 2016.  That increase from 3.51m to 3.97m in a decade is a 13.1% increase.

TOLLROADSnews 2009-05-19 ADDITIONS 2009-05-21