Foothill Route Today Is Starting to Take Its Toll : Transportation: The first two weeks on the 3.2-mile segment were free for motorists. Now, it’s pay or stay.

Starting today, it’s pay or stay.

Drivers must pay tolls ranging from 25 cents for cars to $1.80 for big trucks on the Foothill tollway, the first toll road built in California since the Great Depression, when they were banned.

The 3.2-mile segment of the road, which eventually will stretch 30 miles from the Irvine Lake area to Interstate 5 near San Clemente, opened Oct. 16 but has been toll-free during a two-week, get-acquainted period.

“I guess I’ll be one of the first ones to drop my quarters in the machine,” Lake Forest resident Maria Costanza said Friday. “I have to go to work at 5 a.m. because I’m a nurse. But I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, you know? Before moving here I lived in New Jersey for 20 years, and there I paid tolls all the time. So I guess Californians will get used to it.”

But the Foothill tollway is different.

It’s the first in the United States to offer the AT&T; “Smart Card,” a device resembling a credit card that drivers insert into a small, dashboard-mounted transponder. That exchanges prepaid account data by radio with the tollway’s computer system, enabling drivers to breeze through toll plazas at freeway speeds without stopping.

The novel system is being marketed by tollway officials under the FasTrak name. But so far, fewer than 100 people have applied for prepaid accounts, even though thousands of people have used the tollway daily.

Tollway officials said they anticipated slow sales initially, because the first road segment is too short to benefit a lot of residents, the public was unfamiliar with the FasTrak system and traffic will be light anyway.

The tollway, which extends from Portola Parkway near Lake Forest to Portola Parkway near Irvine, has averaged more than 12,000 vehicles a day.

From Monday through Thursday during the first week of operation, tollway officials counted 47,192 vehicles. During the comparable four-day period last week, volume jumped 18% to 55,732 vehicles.

Mike Stockstill, tollway spokesman, cautioned that traffic was especially heavy on Wednesday because of fires that forced some people to change their normal driving patterns.

He said officials expect a drop-off in volume once people realize they now must pay to use the road.

Until now, some people have been using the highway simply to see what it looks like.

“Nobody knows what the drop-off will be, but it could be 30% to 50%, based on what we’ve seen on other, similar projects elsewhere,” Stockstill said.

He and other tollway officials will no doubt contribute to the vehicle count.

“I plan to be out there myself on Monday to check things out,” Stockstill said. “I’ll probably drive it four or five times.”

Information about obtaining the FasTrak system is available by calling (800) 378-TRAK or by visiting the FasTrak service center at 30 Fairbanks in Irvine.