Toll Talk: Lake Washington Bridges

More and more every day it sounds like tolls will make a comeback in our area sooner rather than later. Likely initial candidates? I-90 and 520 across Lake Washington.

Imagine free-flowing traffic across both Lake Washington floating bridges at all hours of the day.

Now imagine paying more than $5 every time you drive across the lake — because that's what it would take.

That's according to the preliminary findings of a state Transportation Commission report that will be presented to the public at open houses across the state this week, including one in Mercer Island.

Using tolls on the State Route 520 and Interstate 90 bridges was one of several hypothetical scenarios the commission considered in its study of the potential benefits of tolling.

According to the study, a relatively high toll price to cross the bridges would improve traffic flow across the lake — by influencing people to shift their commuting habits — but could have a negative impact on overall traffic on the Eastside and in Seattle.

As I have said before, I learned long ago that it's just a bad idea to live across the water from where you work. If the choice is between nasty traffic or a $3-$5 per day toll, you've put yourself in a pretty crummy spot.

Then again, as a commenter on yesterday's post pointed out, the neighborhoods around the edge of the bridges (Medina, Mercer Island, Madison Park, etc.) are some of Seattle's richest. They would probably be happy to pay $5 a day to reduce the traffic (by eliminating the cars of all those pesky commoners).

(Jamie Swift, King County Journal, 06.19.2006)