Tollway Intimidation Not a Solution

The San Joaquin Hills tollway is an excellent road and a convenient one. It is a time saver, it relieves congestion at the El Toro Y, and probably saves thousands of dollars in time lost to traffic delays. But the California Highway Patrol chuckle about drivers backing up from tollbooths is no joke, and they are not doing much to resolve it.

The $76 fine and the cameras intimidate everyone from going through the booth if the coin collector is jammed--and it is always jammed. I have tossed up to three times the toll amount into the basket, and it takes the money, but will not turn green.

As a former Illinois trooper, I have seen horrible fiery crashes and torn bodies at tollbooths. Surely the San Joaquin Hills tollway planners consulted with plenty of toll road authorities while designing the tollway.

Instead of mitigating the risk, they have gone to great length to take your picture and threaten to fine you. In addition, it looks like a staffed tollbooth the first time you exit. A plain, white, rectangular sign that asks for exact change and states that there is no attendant at the booth appears about 300 feet before exiting the ramp, at a time when most drivers are focused on speed, distance and the other cars. And that’s when you learn it is not manned.

They want to sell you a FasTrak. They want to hold the deposit money in interest-bearing accounts. They don’t want cash. They want cash flow.

Toll roads from Illinois to Pennsylvania have earned remarkable profits without cameras and automatic ticketing. The Illinois Tollway bought Chrysler squad cars and microwave communications equipment. They had large salaries and lots of perks. Tollways earn plenty of money, and San Joaquin Hills is no exception.

Tollway authorities give the impression they would rather tolerate some fiery crashes if that’s what it takes to intimidate drivers. The drivers who back up or U-turn are trying to obey the law and the tollway isn’t making that easy to do.

If the tollway wanted a simple solution, they would use a dollar changer--ordinary soda machines have that capability. They don’t want to make change. They could sell you tokens like the BART that runs through a reader until it is out of money. They don’t want to sell you tokens.

They want you to “deposit” $80 a month in their account. Eighty dollars multiplied by 100,000 drivers gives them $8 million in the bank on which to draw interest. Interest can add up when you have $8 million in savings. That is why there are tollbooth problems.

The Orange County bankruptcy and Robert Citron have not taught tollway management that they are not supposed to “make a profit”; they are merely supposed to provide custodial management and pay off the bonds in the time allotted.

The tollway authority understands the problem, but apparently doesn’t want to fix it.