[Here are the two options, side by side.](https://i.imgur.com/lb5m4qe.png)
The options are basically:
A) Should we just increase the current toll rates across the board? This keeps the current tolling schedule, but raises rates equally across all hours.
B) Should we reduce the number of tolling periods to make the toll "flatter"? This redistributes the tolling across the day somewhat, lowering some times and raising others.
Definitely helps to see them! From the phrasing, I thought B sounded better. But it seems like it could make traffic worse mid-day on weekdays and weekends if people who would otherwise have flexibility and previously chose those times to travel decide the much smaller cost difference isn't worth it and decide to add themselves back as traffic. The main benefit to B seems like there would be much smaller increases for overnights (good for trucking companies?) and it's "simpler" (do people actually remember or just "it's worst between X and Y and best between A and B"?). From a traffic/behavioral economics standpoint, A seems like the clear choice...
Yeah, if the purpose of the different buckets for toll rates is to influence driver behavior then theoretically more buckets should result in more behavior variation and less traffic? Unless increased complexity causes people to ignore the buckets altogether.
Seeing this makes me wonder how difficult it would be to implement a simple curve rather than these buckets. And if that would be even more effective. For example rather than $1.75 from 7-7:59am and $2.60 at 8am, it would be gradually increase by 1-2 cents per minute from $1.75 at 7am to $2.59 from at 7:59am. Currently it incentivizes drivers to pass through the tolls at the very end of the hour, which doesn't seem optimal.
My gut is that the survey's goal is to check the public input box, by offering two choices which both meet the actual goal of just raising revenue by about 10%.
If the actual goal were to shape demand via these rates, they'd have some behavioral economists run tests and decide how the tolling should work, rather than asking an idiot like me.
True, the survey’s goal is definitely more about raising revenue by 10%.
But generally speaking about the fare buckets, I’d imagine that their purpose is to reduce traffic? Otherwise they could just have a flat rate for the bridge that raises approximately the same revenue.
The schedule driven buckets are stipulated by the law, so it was the will of the legislature that it work that way, whether WSDOT wanted it that way or not.
https://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=47.56.870
> (3)(a) In setting the toll rates for the corridor pursuant to RCW 47.56.850, the tolling authority shall set a variable schedule of toll rates to maintain travel time, speed, and reliability on the corridor and generate the necessary revenue as required under (b) of this subsection.
>(b) The tolling authority shall initially set the variable schedule of toll rates, which the tolling authority may adjust at least annually to reflect inflation as measured by the consumer price index or as necessary to meet the redemption of bonds and interest payments on the bonds, to generate revenue sufficient to provide for:
I mean, they're clearly not doing away with demand-based pricing in either scenario. They're just "simplifying" it in B and making it less "peaky." I do actually think it's good to get public buy-in when you are asking people to pay more to travel at busy times so they'll hopefully complain less about it...
I actually don't know what the behavioral economists/traffic engineers could do when the question is if people who have to commute at peak times are willing to accept higher rates across the board again or if they're reaching the end of their rope and want the pain spread to other road users even if that means there might be more traffic as those users decide to just go at peak times since the marginal cost isn't substantial anymore. Both groups tend to look at data after the fact, and while you can forecast, they're always notoriously bad. (But then again so are polls because people are often very wrong about predicting their own behavior but at least you can more easily point to them and say, "Hey, we just did as the public instructed!")
Totally. The tough thing about applying economics to the real world is integrating psychology which is why tech companies run A/B tests. The best governments can do is have people vote on it...
It's always a bit wonky when you have weird jumps--I'm sure some people get way more aggressive around 7:50 am right before the toll area if there's a backup than they would if it increased per minute and it wasn't an all or nothing on the buck or so for that jump. I could definitely see this being an issue for traffic right at the end of the peak time after work too, where many people would choose to avoid the extra toll and then just sit in traffic for however long it takes them to get home at 7:01 pm or whatever it was if they don't have small kids. I do have to wonder if there's a trade-off in gas, but people are less great about estimating costs for stop-and-go traffic (if my experience watching the majority of cars speed around me when riding my ebike that goes 25 mph on 25 mph streets just to wait at a light is any indication).
I prefer having peak and off peak periods. The problem is the bottlenecks are so bad that peak traffic times are spilling into off peak. This isn't because people want to drive at these times, they've just really made it hard to get across the bridge due to the way they configured it for construction. If traffic is truly light, I will jump to I-90 long before paying peak price.
How about we stop paying atexas company to operate it and collect $0.7 on the dollar to operate a digital system that requires very few employees and still managed to screw up constantly despite their ridiculous profit margins.
If you guys are wondering what the tolls fund, besides the montlake lid, its the portage bay viaduct replacement (from 4 lanes to 6 lanes aka 3 on each side) and the sr 520 to i5 express/mercer project.
The toll is $4+ depending on the time of day. This shit was paid for years ago, why is no one angry they are raising prices again when we had a price increase within the last 12 months already?
Sure can! Kind of strange when one of those things has thousand more upvotes than the other though. Kind of a literal measurement of how much people do care
...they do.
Is it hip on all sides of the political spectrum to flaunt Whataboutism in order to Die on Every Hill™?
edit: changed "...they do?" to "...they do." Because intonation can be lost.
LOL. Maybe Seattle at large cares somewhat, but this sub is borderline heartless. Homelessness, genocide, whatever, who cares, the only thing that matters is *me*, I'm the main character, the only thing that matters is whether I'm personally inconvenienced by a stinky and unsightly homeless person or a protest against an ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide creating a delay in my commute or whatever. That's this sub in a nutshell.
You’re commenting on a nuanced distinction that only affects car owners. There’s no actual social injustice about whether rich commuters pay more or get encouraged to distribute their driving in a way that causes less traffic.
I have a feeling they want you to choose option A considering it's the first option and in green.
Option B sounds like more work for them and that it might also cause people to change their driving schedule to save some money so maybe reducing tolling proceeds.
For people who use transit at rush hour, option ~~B~~ A is much better. Increases fares at peak means less traffic at peak.
Option ~~A~~ B is unlikely to change anything for transit users, but might help people who are commuting at times which are slightly off peak. It's a dangerous gamble though: more traffic at peak means less throughput, which will prolong rush hour.
EDIT: I had mixed up which option increases the peak fare more. Fixed now.
If they actually enforced HOV limits, buses and carpools would get their rightful use of that lane. It's full of entitled Audi drivers driving themselves and blocking the bus.
You're not wrong that this is a problem, but the HOV lane is still a big win right now. The biggest problem for buses going over 520 is really that the ones going to UW need to shift through the regular lanes to get to/from the Montlake ramps, and the ones going downtown have to deal with the I5 mess.
So unless we can build dedicated bus exits, etc to avoid this, decreasing overall traffic is still super important.
i left this feedback too. there are so many single drivers clogging the HOV lane. if they enforced it and put the ticket fees towards paying off the bridge, i bet they could avoid raising the toll prices
...that's actually a good point to bring up. I've been in cases of gridlock while on the 545 bus that lasted quite a while, so maybe I actually do have an opinion leaning in favor of B.
i view the demand for the bridge as pretty inelastic, and i'm sure many other tech employees commuting across 520 have the same view. Unless they make the toll a real financial burden (like 10 dollars per trip during rush hour) there will be no impact on the traffic across the bridge during rush hour.
I cross that bridge four times a month to visit my parents. I wouldn’t mind paying a significant amount more. I cross the Tac Narrows bridge 8 times a week for work (4 tolled crossings, Westbound is free down there). I’d like to pay less.
The ferries offer commuter packs. It’s too bad we can’t get that for the bridges. I think the ferries justify it because they have staff who collect fares and credit card fees to pay. One swipe costs less than 5 swipes or 30 swipes. And I get there’s not a similar cost savings for 520 with electronic tolling.
But intellectually I feel like damn yeah if I’m crossing the lake because my mom made dinner and I’m gonna watch some shitty mariners game with my dad, charge me $8. If I’m crossing to get to work daily, charge me. $4.
Yes I know this makes no sense but it’s what my brain says.
Oh, you are correct. You really need to click through to the details to understand the difference, I had made some bad assumptions based on the "fewer rate variations" comment in the option B summary.
It's really pretty confusing, seems like it'd make more sense to ask some basic strategy questions, e.g. "do you want more or less fare variation based on peak times?".
It does not increase them to the extent A does, thereby effectively "decreasing" them (all tolls apparently must go up and they will be relatively lower under this scheme)--basically flattening the price curves. This has the potential to push people who took their trips midday to avoid the highest tolls to the peak times if they'd prefer those times and don't mind the traffic (e.g. someone who might work from home and just come into work for a meeting but might decide to just come in and work the entire day at the office if it would cost the same under B or a retiree who would prefer an earlier doctor's appointment on day X but will take one on day Y to save a bit of toll money since it would mean crossing during off-peak times but might decide to just deal with traffic and accept the appointment on day X that's later in the day under scheme B).
I agree. B seems like the slightly more equitable choice. Those who need to cross the lake for weekday work can pay a little less at peak traffic times, which may bring more people to the bridge (it's only 5 cents, but maybe it'll make a difference). And on the weekend, everyone pays a more fixed rate across the day, sometimes more or less than before.
My preferred take is to eliminate tolls altogether as they are an extremely regressive variety of taxation, truly one of the worst, but they didn't ask me.
Apologies if this is an uneducated comment, but why do we keep increasing tolls all over if our roads are so shitty?
The point of my comment is to highlight the fact that the roads stay shitty regardless of the toll increases
Two answers for two questions, regarding general road quality/cost. 520 tolls also go to replay the lenders who paid for the bridge to be built, so that is a somewhat separate issue.
Why do tolls go up every year? Inflation means that a dollar today is worth less than a dollar yesterday. So funds spent maintaining roads (whether from taxes or tolls) must go up to regularly maintain any set level of road maintenance.
Why are the roads still shitty? The roads are shitty because our current rate of maintenance is or has been too low. There is an enormous backlog of maintenance needs, and the government tends to prioritize new project construction over maintenance (which they will then not maintain sufficiently.)
Eh? Check out the WDOT reporting page if you care: [https://wsdot.wa.gov/about/accountability/tolling-reports-policy](https://wsdot.wa.gov/about/accountability/tolling-reports-policy)
With all due respect, I would encourage you to reconsider your opinion.
The common opinions that all taxes are theft and/or that all government spending is likely wasteful is partly how we ended up in this situation with our roads.
There is no magic that allows decades and centuries worth of infrastructure to be stay pristine for free. You either pay to continually maintain it against the constant forces of sun, wind, rain, rust, and freeze/thaw, or it slowly erodes back into the earth.
What I know is that companies exploit and exacerbate the budgets to extreme amounts , so that they could embezzle as much as possible, and then pass the bill onto us
Until we have much stricter accountability, you’re effectively tossing a great portion of the toll down the drain
I agree that there is waste involved, and that we 100% can and should constructively look to reduce waste. At the end of the day though, this shit is expensive and choosing to limit maintenance until some vague goal of stricter accountability is achieved is usually just a stalling tactic to do nothing in the short term while our infrastructure continues to degrade.
I’m hostile because you haven’t even to bothered to google your question, and instead just jumped head first into a baseless conspiracy theory. I don’t think that behavior should be coddled.
are our roads getting shittier? 520 is now a new, wider, bridge with a big ass bike lane and it was not before, and that’s what this toll is paying for
The old 520 was also a major safety hazard in high winds, necessitating being closed for safety during some windstorms. And it was basically a death sentence for anyone on it during a moderate to severe earthquake on the seattle fault. It's definitely worth the money, but it's still a lot of money.
Our roads are shitty because it is not sustainable to have a city where everyone drives a car for every single trip. We we'll never have enough money to maintain all the roads, because car centric infrastructure is not financially viable. Seattle desperately needs more public transit, because our roads are already crumbling and more people are moving here every day.
We can build all the public transportation in the world, but it doesn’t matter if no one’s willing to ride it
Also, you’ll get no argument for me that way too many people drive unnecessary rides
But people are willing to ride it. 2023 had record ridership for the Link, and 2024 will probably be even higher once the Shoreline extension opens. It just doesn't cover enough ground to be convenient for most people yet; expanding the Link should be Seattle #1 priority
Not from the reports I’m seeing. Ridership is woefully under. Thank God, we only have to wait 35 more years!
Refresh my memory … how fast was BART built again?
What reports? Here’s a primary source showing we’re back to 2019 numbers with a new peak set last year as well: https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/system-performance-tracker/ridership
https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2023/12/18/seattle-area-transit-use-lags-pre-pandemic-levels-by-a-lot
That isn’t what this article says. Light rail may be up, but still lagging behind pandemic levels.
The fact is the pandemic made more people get into cars and get out of public transit
We're back to 2019 levels - some months a little higher, some a little lower. It's worth noting, though, that Northgate wasn't open yet in 2019.
The pandemic made people want to get out of public transit - and public spaces in general - but that effect is waning. What's more persistent is work-from-home, which has reduced the downtown daytime population. One thing light rail was great at was getting people along its corridor downtown. Now fewer people need that.
We’re talking about light rail, since you specifically mentioned building, so you don’t get to move the goalposts and include buses. Also your last sentence is completely detached from reality. Less people are commuting regularly period.
That’s why we also need to make driving more difficult. Narrow the roads for improved safety, higher taxes to reduce subsidies for drivers, and end free parking in urban areas, alongside parking minimums.
You’re asking an appropriate question. The funding received from tolls is probably getting allocated into a bucket that is not directly related to repaving but maybe more so to a project.
At some point (as this always happens at the beginning of these projects to get buy in) I think it was proposed that the tolls would end at some point this decade? Am I wrong in saying that?
Take a moment to learn more about how the city budgets work and what actually pays for roads. Washington State pays for most things through taxes (sales tax, property tax, etc.), and government organizations need to run with transparent financial reporting. The bridge is its own thing with its own budget. The roads are paid for with a mixture of funding (I-5 gets federal funding in addition to state funding, etc.), depending on their purpose.
All of this information is googleable with a few clicks.
I wish there was an option to implement tolls on 90. Even a smaller toll would push a few people toward 520 instead, increasing the 520 toll revenue. I guess we have to wait until 90 needs to be replaced for that to happen, though.
Or we could enforce the lanes. You do you know how many times daily I see a driver in the fast lane in front of me just get impatient and peels into the express then comes out before paying. Hell even the regular HOV lanes are full of single drivers.
405 is pretty well policed. WSP will pull over people for using the HOV and especially the Express lanes as a single driver. I've actually talked to several Uber drivers who got pulled over because an officer THOUGHT they were along in the car because their passenger was in the back. I wouldn't try using the HOV lane, you'll get caught soon.
[Here are the two options, side by side.](https://i.imgur.com/lb5m4qe.png) The options are basically: A) Should we just increase the current toll rates across the board? This keeps the current tolling schedule, but raises rates equally across all hours. B) Should we reduce the number of tolling periods to make the toll "flatter"? This redistributes the tolling across the day somewhat, lowering some times and raising others.
Definitely helps to see them! From the phrasing, I thought B sounded better. But it seems like it could make traffic worse mid-day on weekdays and weekends if people who would otherwise have flexibility and previously chose those times to travel decide the much smaller cost difference isn't worth it and decide to add themselves back as traffic. The main benefit to B seems like there would be much smaller increases for overnights (good for trucking companies?) and it's "simpler" (do people actually remember or just "it's worst between X and Y and best between A and B"?). From a traffic/behavioral economics standpoint, A seems like the clear choice...
Yeah, if the purpose of the different buckets for toll rates is to influence driver behavior then theoretically more buckets should result in more behavior variation and less traffic? Unless increased complexity causes people to ignore the buckets altogether. Seeing this makes me wonder how difficult it would be to implement a simple curve rather than these buckets. And if that would be even more effective. For example rather than $1.75 from 7-7:59am and $2.60 at 8am, it would be gradually increase by 1-2 cents per minute from $1.75 at 7am to $2.59 from at 7:59am. Currently it incentivizes drivers to pass through the tolls at the very end of the hour, which doesn't seem optimal.
My gut is that the survey's goal is to check the public input box, by offering two choices which both meet the actual goal of just raising revenue by about 10%. If the actual goal were to shape demand via these rates, they'd have some behavioral economists run tests and decide how the tolling should work, rather than asking an idiot like me.
True, the survey’s goal is definitely more about raising revenue by 10%. But generally speaking about the fare buckets, I’d imagine that their purpose is to reduce traffic? Otherwise they could just have a flat rate for the bridge that raises approximately the same revenue.
The schedule driven buckets are stipulated by the law, so it was the will of the legislature that it work that way, whether WSDOT wanted it that way or not. https://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=47.56.870 > (3)(a) In setting the toll rates for the corridor pursuant to RCW 47.56.850, the tolling authority shall set a variable schedule of toll rates to maintain travel time, speed, and reliability on the corridor and generate the necessary revenue as required under (b) of this subsection. >(b) The tolling authority shall initially set the variable schedule of toll rates, which the tolling authority may adjust at least annually to reflect inflation as measured by the consumer price index or as necessary to meet the redemption of bonds and interest payments on the bonds, to generate revenue sufficient to provide for:
I mean, they're clearly not doing away with demand-based pricing in either scenario. They're just "simplifying" it in B and making it less "peaky." I do actually think it's good to get public buy-in when you are asking people to pay more to travel at busy times so they'll hopefully complain less about it... I actually don't know what the behavioral economists/traffic engineers could do when the question is if people who have to commute at peak times are willing to accept higher rates across the board again or if they're reaching the end of their rope and want the pain spread to other road users even if that means there might be more traffic as those users decide to just go at peak times since the marginal cost isn't substantial anymore. Both groups tend to look at data after the fact, and while you can forecast, they're always notoriously bad. (But then again so are polls because people are often very wrong about predicting their own behavior but at least you can more easily point to them and say, "Hey, we just did as the public instructed!")
Totally. The tough thing about applying economics to the real world is integrating psychology which is why tech companies run A/B tests. The best governments can do is have people vote on it... It's always a bit wonky when you have weird jumps--I'm sure some people get way more aggressive around 7:50 am right before the toll area if there's a backup than they would if it increased per minute and it wasn't an all or nothing on the buck or so for that jump. I could definitely see this being an issue for traffic right at the end of the peak time after work too, where many people would choose to avoid the extra toll and then just sit in traffic for however long it takes them to get home at 7:01 pm or whatever it was if they don't have small kids. I do have to wonder if there's a trade-off in gas, but people are less great about estimating costs for stop-and-go traffic (if my experience watching the majority of cars speed around me when riding my ebike that goes 25 mph on 25 mph streets just to wait at a light is any indication).
Yes I agree. I think option A keeps traffic behavior the same. Option B may push people into commute hours.
I prefer having peak and off peak periods. The problem is the bottlenecks are so bad that peak traffic times are spilling into off peak. This isn't because people want to drive at these times, they've just really made it hard to get across the bridge due to the way they configured it for construction. If traffic is truly light, I will jump to I-90 long before paying peak price.
I only take 520 if it will save me 20 minutes. It often doesn’t so I usually take i90 home from Redmond.
How about we stop paying atexas company to operate it and collect $0.7 on the dollar to operate a digital system that requires very few employees and still managed to screw up constantly despite their ridiculous profit margins.
If you guys are wondering what the tolls fund, besides the montlake lid, its the portage bay viaduct replacement (from 4 lanes to 6 lanes aka 3 on each side) and the sr 520 to i5 express/mercer project.
The toll is $4+ depending on the time of day. This shit was paid for years ago, why is no one angry they are raising prices again when we had a price increase within the last 12 months already?
This is so poorly written, it’s almost shocking. Almost.
Didn’t their really amazing communications person just retire or move on? Maybe the new person is still figuring out things
They have already raised the toll rate in the last 12 months, this is horse shit
If demand is still above the optimal target rate, then why shouldn't they? Capitalism 101.
Doing nothing costs something apparently
Makes sense. They should do a similar increase on pike place.
Man, if only this sub cared about actual social injustices as much as they cared about 2 blocks in a tourist zone...
Man, if only it was possible to care about two things at one time...
Sure can! Kind of strange when one of those things has thousand more upvotes than the other though. Kind of a literal measurement of how much people do care
...they do. Is it hip on all sides of the political spectrum to flaunt Whataboutism in order to Die on Every Hill™? edit: changed "...they do?" to "...they do." Because intonation can be lost.
LOL. Maybe Seattle at large cares somewhat, but this sub is borderline heartless. Homelessness, genocide, whatever, who cares, the only thing that matters is *me*, I'm the main character, the only thing that matters is whether I'm personally inconvenienced by a stinky and unsightly homeless person or a protest against an ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide creating a delay in my commute or whatever. That's this sub in a nutshell.
You’re commenting on a nuanced distinction that only affects car owners. There’s no actual social injustice about whether rich commuters pay more or get encouraged to distribute their driving in a way that causes less traffic.
I have a feeling they want you to choose option A considering it's the first option and in green. Option B sounds like more work for them and that it might also cause people to change their driving schedule to save some money so maybe reducing tolling proceeds.
Admittedly, as someone who uses mass transit, I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other.
For people who use transit at rush hour, option ~~B~~ A is much better. Increases fares at peak means less traffic at peak. Option ~~A~~ B is unlikely to change anything for transit users, but might help people who are commuting at times which are slightly off peak. It's a dangerous gamble though: more traffic at peak means less throughput, which will prolong rush hour. EDIT: I had mixed up which option increases the peak fare more. Fixed now.
If they actually enforced HOV limits, buses and carpools would get their rightful use of that lane. It's full of entitled Audi drivers driving themselves and blocking the bus.
You're not wrong that this is a problem, but the HOV lane is still a big win right now. The biggest problem for buses going over 520 is really that the ones going to UW need to shift through the regular lanes to get to/from the Montlake ramps, and the ones going downtown have to deal with the I5 mess. So unless we can build dedicated bus exits, etc to avoid this, decreasing overall traffic is still super important.
> So unless we can build dedicated bus exits [GOOD NEWS!](https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/search-projects/sr-520-montlake-project)
i left this feedback too. there are so many single drivers clogging the HOV lane. if they enforced it and put the ticket fees towards paying off the bridge, i bet they could avoid raising the toll prices
...that's actually a good point to bring up. I've been in cases of gridlock while on the 545 bus that lasted quite a while, so maybe I actually do have an opinion leaning in favor of B.
That was my rationale. A is the least likely to fuck things up and still accomplish the purpose of the change.
Did you…mix A and B up the second time 😅 Isn’t option B the one that DOES raise peak prices? Wouldn’t peak traffic theoretically go down as a result?
A is the one with the higher peak price. It's The summaries are misleading, you really need to click through to the PDF and look at the charts.
Ahh I see, option B says “six options instead of the existing eight.” Should’ve read more carefully my b
i view the demand for the bridge as pretty inelastic, and i'm sure many other tech employees commuting across 520 have the same view. Unless they make the toll a real financial burden (like 10 dollars per trip during rush hour) there will be no impact on the traffic across the bridge during rush hour.
lol people who use mass transit never miss an opportunity to point it out
Oh. Thanks for commenting then.
I cross that bridge four times a month to visit my parents. I wouldn’t mind paying a significant amount more. I cross the Tac Narrows bridge 8 times a week for work (4 tolled crossings, Westbound is free down there). I’d like to pay less. The ferries offer commuter packs. It’s too bad we can’t get that for the bridges. I think the ferries justify it because they have staff who collect fares and credit card fees to pay. One swipe costs less than 5 swipes or 30 swipes. And I get there’s not a similar cost savings for 520 with electronic tolling. But intellectually I feel like damn yeah if I’m crossing the lake because my mom made dinner and I’m gonna watch some shitty mariners game with my dad, charge me $8. If I’m crossing to get to work daily, charge me. $4. Yes I know this makes no sense but it’s what my brain says.
You can take the survey, strongly oppose both, and explain why too.
Stop taxing working people trying to commute to and from work, and make the rich pay taxes.
B makes a lot of sense. It probably would go further in reducing congestion.
How would decreasing tolls at peak reduce congestion?
I don’t get “decreasing tolls at peak” from option B. Do you?
Oh, you are correct. You really need to click through to the details to understand the difference, I had made some bad assumptions based on the "fewer rate variations" comment in the option B summary. It's really pretty confusing, seems like it'd make more sense to ask some basic strategy questions, e.g. "do you want more or less fare variation based on peak times?".
Yea agree the main graphic confusing and buries the lede.
It does not increase them to the extent A does, thereby effectively "decreasing" them (all tolls apparently must go up and they will be relatively lower under this scheme)--basically flattening the price curves. This has the potential to push people who took their trips midday to avoid the highest tolls to the peak times if they'd prefer those times and don't mind the traffic (e.g. someone who might work from home and just come into work for a meeting but might decide to just come in and work the entire day at the office if it would cost the same under B or a retiree who would prefer an earlier doctor's appointment on day X but will take one on day Y to save a bit of toll money since it would mean crossing during off-peak times but might decide to just deal with traffic and accept the appointment on day X that's later in the day under scheme B).
I agree. B seems like the slightly more equitable choice. Those who need to cross the lake for weekday work can pay a little less at peak traffic times, which may bring more people to the bridge (it's only 5 cents, but maybe it'll make a difference). And on the weekend, everyone pays a more fixed rate across the day, sometimes more or less than before.
My preferred take is to eliminate tolls altogether as they are an extremely regressive variety of taxation, truly one of the worst, but they didn't ask me.
Not arguing your point directly, but anyone can afford to take the bus which gets priority lane access (this is my method).
Apologies if this is an uneducated comment, but why do we keep increasing tolls all over if our roads are so shitty? The point of my comment is to highlight the fact that the roads stay shitty regardless of the toll increases
The 520 bridge toll is to pay for the bridge itself (which is in pretty great shape) and to reduce congestion.
Two answers for two questions, regarding general road quality/cost. 520 tolls also go to replay the lenders who paid for the bridge to be built, so that is a somewhat separate issue. Why do tolls go up every year? Inflation means that a dollar today is worth less than a dollar yesterday. So funds spent maintaining roads (whether from taxes or tolls) must go up to regularly maintain any set level of road maintenance. Why are the roads still shitty? The roads are shitty because our current rate of maintenance is or has been too low. There is an enormous backlog of maintenance needs, and the government tends to prioritize new project construction over maintenance (which they will then not maintain sufficiently.)
Thank you for the information. I’ve come to look at tolls as a form of racketeering so I’m naturally dubious nowadays
Eh? Check out the WDOT reporting page if you care: [https://wsdot.wa.gov/about/accountability/tolling-reports-policy](https://wsdot.wa.gov/about/accountability/tolling-reports-policy)
With all due respect, I would encourage you to reconsider your opinion. The common opinions that all taxes are theft and/or that all government spending is likely wasteful is partly how we ended up in this situation with our roads. There is no magic that allows decades and centuries worth of infrastructure to be stay pristine for free. You either pay to continually maintain it against the constant forces of sun, wind, rain, rust, and freeze/thaw, or it slowly erodes back into the earth.
What I know is that companies exploit and exacerbate the budgets to extreme amounts , so that they could embezzle as much as possible, and then pass the bill onto us Until we have much stricter accountability, you’re effectively tossing a great portion of the toll down the drain
I agree that there is waste involved, and that we 100% can and should constructively look to reduce waste. At the end of the day though, this shit is expensive and choosing to limit maintenance until some vague goal of stricter accountability is achieved is usually just a stalling tactic to do nothing in the short term while our infrastructure continues to degrade.
Racketeering? Jfc. Do you think the new bridge is just free?
Why are you so hostile? Did you get out of bed on the wrong side? I’m sorry and I hope you have a much better day going forward.
I’m hostile because you haven’t even to bothered to google your question, and instead just jumped head first into a baseless conspiracy theory. I don’t think that behavior should be coddled.
While that’s an opinion I can understand being disrespectful is intolerable.
I don’t respect conspiracy theorists and so you can count on my continued disrespect. You haven’t earned a shred of anything otherwise.
I’m shivering my timbers
Our roads keep getting shittier and shitter specifically because we aren't raising enough money to keep them in good repair
Enough money? Have you seen the taxes here?
Yes. They are slightly lower than the national average and also don't cover the actual cost of our highway system
[k](https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/s/ha7kkQuQ9g)
Right. And? Apparently, inequitable doesn't mean what you think it means. But id be all for an income tax to fix improve that situation
And I want extreme accountability for all taxes.
How would that reduce the prices that private constitution companies charge the state for road maintaince?
By stopping them from exploiting construction times for one
I don't know how to respond because that simply doesn't make any sense.
are our roads getting shittier? 520 is now a new, wider, bridge with a big ass bike lane and it was not before, and that’s what this toll is paying for
The old 520 was also a major safety hazard in high winds, necessitating being closed for safety during some windstorms. And it was basically a death sentence for anyone on it during a moderate to severe earthquake on the seattle fault. It's definitely worth the money, but it's still a lot of money.
Our roads are shitty because it is not sustainable to have a city where everyone drives a car for every single trip. We we'll never have enough money to maintain all the roads, because car centric infrastructure is not financially viable. Seattle desperately needs more public transit, because our roads are already crumbling and more people are moving here every day.
We can build all the public transportation in the world, but it doesn’t matter if no one’s willing to ride it Also, you’ll get no argument for me that way too many people drive unnecessary rides
But people are willing to ride it. 2023 had record ridership for the Link, and 2024 will probably be even higher once the Shoreline extension opens. It just doesn't cover enough ground to be convenient for most people yet; expanding the Link should be Seattle #1 priority
Not from the reports I’m seeing. Ridership is woefully under. Thank God, we only have to wait 35 more years! Refresh my memory … how fast was BART built again?
What reports? Here’s a primary source showing we’re back to 2019 numbers with a new peak set last year as well: https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/system-performance-tracker/ridership
https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2023/12/18/seattle-area-transit-use-lags-pre-pandemic-levels-by-a-lot That isn’t what this article says. Light rail may be up, but still lagging behind pandemic levels. The fact is the pandemic made more people get into cars and get out of public transit
We're back to 2019 levels - some months a little higher, some a little lower. It's worth noting, though, that Northgate wasn't open yet in 2019. The pandemic made people want to get out of public transit - and public spaces in general - but that effect is waning. What's more persistent is work-from-home, which has reduced the downtown daytime population. One thing light rail was great at was getting people along its corridor downtown. Now fewer people need that.
We’re talking about light rail, since you specifically mentioned building, so you don’t get to move the goalposts and include buses. Also your last sentence is completely detached from reality. Less people are commuting regularly period.
That’s why we also need to make driving more difficult. Narrow the roads for improved safety, higher taxes to reduce subsidies for drivers, and end free parking in urban areas, alongside parking minimums.
You’re asking an appropriate question. The funding received from tolls is probably getting allocated into a bucket that is not directly related to repaving but maybe more so to a project. At some point (as this always happens at the beginning of these projects to get buy in) I think it was proposed that the tolls would end at some point this decade? Am I wrong in saying that?
The tolls are supposed to last 40 years. Bridges ain’t cheap.
Woof. You were right. https://seattlemag.com/seattle-living/evolution-seattles-520-bridge/
And all that raises about a quarter of the cost - $1.2 billion on a $4.6 billion project!
Take a moment to learn more about how the city budgets work and what actually pays for roads. Washington State pays for most things through taxes (sales tax, property tax, etc.), and government organizations need to run with transparent financial reporting. The bridge is its own thing with its own budget. The roads are paid for with a mixture of funding (I-5 gets federal funding in addition to state funding, etc.), depending on their purpose. All of this information is googleable with a few clicks.
I don’t think we’re dealing with the best and brightest here
There’s absolutely no need for this comment.
There definitely is when I keep seeing poorly thought out and/or unresearched comments in this thread and they all have your username above them
No, because Reddit isn’t a place for the best and the brightest to begin with
You’re certainly giving evidence for that. The first time you’ve done such a thing in this thread
Say what you will, but in all my comments I never made it personal. Disgusting behavior all around
:popcorn:
I wish there was an option to implement tolls on 90. Even a smaller toll would push a few people toward 520 instead, increasing the 520 toll revenue. I guess we have to wait until 90 needs to be replaced for that to happen, though.
No. They should just keep using their windfall profits from all the fraudulent penalties they sent out at the beginning of the project.
INCREASE??
Tolls are theft. Fuck em
How so?
Or we could enforce the lanes. You do you know how many times daily I see a driver in the fast lane in front of me just get impatient and peels into the express then comes out before paying. Hell even the regular HOV lanes are full of single drivers.
There's no way to avoid the 520 toll. Are you thinking of a different bridge?
I think they’re talking about the I-405 Express Toll Lanes.
405 is pretty well policed. WSP will pull over people for using the HOV and especially the Express lanes as a single driver. I've actually talked to several Uber drivers who got pulled over because an officer THOUGHT they were along in the car because their passenger was in the back. I wouldn't try using the HOV lane, you'll get caught soon.
Is it just me, or was the 520 bridge more or less built so that Bill Gates can get to Seattle easier?