On Monday, Bay Area Toll Authority announced a new all-electronic toll collection system will start after midnight New Year’s Eve at the Antioch, Benicia-Martinez, Carquinez, Dumbarton, Richmond-San Rafael, San Francisco-Oakland Bay and San Mateo-Hayward bridges.
Customer who pay their tolls with a FasTrak tag or a license-plate account will see no difference in their statements, but drivers who are not enrolled in either program will also receive a monthly invoice for all toll bridge crossings from Friday on.
After cash toll collection was suspended on March 21 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, these drivers were sent individual toll notices for each bridge crossing.
The all-electronic toll collection system being introduced in 2021 at the Bay Area’s seven state-owned toll bridges is similar to the system used at the Golden Gate Bridge, which adopted all-electronic tolling in 2013.
Automated, high-speed cameras will capture images of license plates, and the FasTrak customer service center will process the images and then mail an invoice each month to the address at which the vehicle is registered with the DMV.
The debut of all-electronic tolling and monthly invoicing at the state-owned bridges will mark the return of toll payment rules that were temporarily suspended in March.
Drivers who do not have FasTrak or a License Plate Account — and who do not use the online one-time payment option — will be required to return invoices with payment within 30 days. Those who neglect to return payment within 30 days will receive a “Notice of Toll Evasion” with a $25 penalty for each toll crossing.
Drivers who do not return invoices with payment after 60 days will receive a “Second Notice of Delinquent Toll Evasion” with a violation penalty of $70 per crossing. Customers who do not return payment after a second notice may have a hold put on their vehicle registration by the DMV and/or have the amount owed referred to a collection agency.
BATA encourages drivers who do not already have FasTrak to open accounts online at www.bayareafastrak.org or by phone at (877) 229-8655. Customers also may obtain FasTrak tags at select Costco and Walgreens stores.
Drivers also may open a License Plate Account, which links a license plate to a credit card and charges that card whenever the vehicle crosses a toll bridge; or make a one-time payment, which allows the customer to pay a toll online up to 30 days in advance of a bridge crossing or within 48 hours afterward. There are no fees for either of these services.
More information about License Plate Accounts and one-time payments is available at www.bayareafastrak.org.
This sounds like great news to me. The way I read it I can now get rid of my fast track account where they proactively charge me before I ever even use it making me maintain of a minimum between 25 and $40 credit at all times on their account. I always hated that and now I can go to paying them after the fact instead of them holding my money all the time.
And by my calculations I could still use the fast track lane with no penalty and probably still use the express lanes with no penalty
I don’t think this article applies to the FT lanes. This I believe is only the bridges.
Yes on second thought I think the express lanes would not apply and you would still need fast track for those otherwise you could get a ticket I believe
Guess my permanent route when I visit will be 4 to 99 to 50
Just watch the number of vehicles that will all of a sudden loss the front license plate.
No plate –
No picture-
No 💵 billing method-
Yeah !
Free tolls….
My guess is they have readers/cameras for the rear as well. Could be wrong, hopefully they thought of that, but it is CA so….
I’m pretty sure they read the rear plates. My husband’s car doesn’t even have a front plate holder, he used to cross the Benicia bridge daily until a year ago. Every crossing showed up on the Fast Trak account, and he didn’t have a transponder in the car.
Nice try, but they also take a picture of your rear license plate! 😂
With the elimination of legions of over-paid, union benefitted ’employees’ you couldn’t fire… the savings should be huge. How about reflecting those lower costs in lower fares to us, the captive saps who are paying for it?
More money to build Toll Lanes!
Charge the people who don’t open a Fastrak Account or an Auto Pay $1 more a crossing for the extra work in billing them. You’d be amazed how fast they would sign up.
I cross a bridge once every couple of years, at the very most. A FastTrack is a ridiculous investment of whatever minimum amount they issue, way more than I need. And, the AutoPay, another opportunity for someone to steal your credit card or identity during a security breach, which seem to be a common occurrence anymore. I’ve had that happen three times already, complete with identity theft. You have no idea what a headache that presents. I’ll do it the old-fashioned way by sending them a check. It’s safer. Not everybody does their financial transaction on computer or even have one. Not everybody has a credit card available for such things. Your suggestion is a regressive punishment for those who tend to be in the lower economic strata of society and is short sighted in that respect.
With app based driving services the drudgery of taking people to airport is gone and commute is 11 miles, haven’t had to use any bridge in many years.
Would guess with work at home and lock downs is just a matter of time until they up tolls by $5 and up registration fees by another $50 to pay for bridge maintenance.
I guess the toll takers haven’t been getting a paycheck since they haven’t been working? Wondering
Oh. And the fast trak in the bay bridge ain’t really faster.
Maybe on the Antioch bridge they could dismantle the toll booths? Stress doubles trying to thread the needle between cement barriers narrowing the passage as you slow from freeway speed with the rest of the traffic.
California Vehicle Code (CVC) § 5200
A License Plate Display Failure ticket will cost you $196 and Up in fines plus $1,000+ in insurance hikes and penalties. Although the state of California issues two license plates for most vehicles, many vehicle owners choose not to install one of them on their front bumper.
Given large number of plates I’ve seen with reflective paint sanded off, either there’s no violation for altering a plate or law enforcement doesn’t care. Have seen no publicity about fines or tickets given out for altering of a plate.
Dumping toll takes saves on employee costs, wages, medical and retirement payouts. Advances in machine vision equals to unemployment for those without a skill set that is in demand.
Ones still employed, those who install and maintain machine vision systems. A skill set that is in demand.
This is a positive from the Covid pandemic.
I’ve said for years all the toll takers did was cause traffic jams and that the technology was there to eliminate this.
Other idea was to add 5 or 10 dollars to your taxes and eliminate the tolls all together. Southern Cal may not like this option!
Again one good thing to come from the pandemic. Hope there are more.
Stay well!
FasTrak is so worth it. It sure made crossing the Benicia Bridge a lot easier. The only problem was idiots who stopped dead in the FasTrak lanes in order to crawl back into the cash lanes.
We still have our FasTrak, and we bring it with us when we visit Claycord. I’ve got about $25 tied up that isn’t drawing interest, but I can live with that. It’s still a lot less expensive than paying the rental agency’s administrative fees.
What a waste of paper! Just get a Fastrak! It really isn’t that hard ya know.
Paper isnt a problem. They have tree farms for paper. Just like they have tree farms for Xmas Trees.
Now the government money spent on the paper, the time and stamps…..
I’ll just print up one of those paper plates that seem so popular today. It seems like there are a lot of recently purchased vehicles lately…WINK….WINK….
As so perfectly pinpointed by Kauai Mike…there will be significant savings which should be returned via lower fees…and would be with the Republican Gov if/when Newsom is kicked out next year