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[Ace10]

In light of what the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) has done to FL-924, FL-874, and FL-878, I'm proposing a similar change to FL-429 in the Central Florida area.

MDX recently changed 924 and 874 to all-electronic open road tolling. With both, there was only one original toll plaza (of $1.00 I believe). MDX installed gantries which read the SunPass toll transponders and have cameras that capture license plates for those without SunPass. For simplicity, I'm focusing just on SunPass since those customers are charged the same amount while the Toll-By-Plate customers are charged more.

The way the new gantries work is that they charge the road user for only how much of the road they use - which I think is fair. When MDX made these changes, a lot of people were all in a fit over tolls that they would now be charged where in the past they got away with using a section of the toll road for free.

My big beef with SR-429 is that the cost per mile between exits can vary greatly. From its southern terminus with I-4 to the US-192 exit, it's about 4.5 miles with a 50 cent toll, about 11 cents per mile. However, if you get on SR-429 from US-192, and take the next exit to Walt Disney World, you drive only 2.2 miles but pay $1.00, which comes out to 45 cents per mile.

I'm not sure if Florida's Turnpike Enterprise or FDOT expected people to take the toll road for only short stints like this, but regardless of that, the cost-per-mile shouldn't vary that much between exits. So I came up with the following:



Exits are:
1A: Sinclair Rd (currently 25 cents northbound exit and southbound entrance)
6: US-192 (currently 50 cents northbound exit and southbound entrance)
Toll plaza: Currently at $1.00
8: WDW (no ramp tolls)
11: Siedel Rd (currently 50 cents northbound exit and southbound entrance, which are the only two ramps)

So in light of what MDX has done, I put red dots where the new toll gantries would go. The existing $1.00 toll barrier will still be there between exits 6 and 8 but will be reduced to 25 cents.

With this system in place, the only tolls that will be changed are between the terminus and US-192, and also between US-192 and Exit 8. Driving to US-192 from 429's terminus will actually cost 25 cents more than it does now. I figure, with only four exits (I-4, Sinclair, US-192, and WDW) there can only be three toll points, so the extra quarter has to go in there somewhere. Since the length between Sinclair and US-192 is the longest, that warrants the extra quarter. Driving the same length to all other exits still cost the same, which was my goal for the proposal.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? I did this mainly to see if I could come up with a fair way to divvy up the mileage sort of like MDX did. I would support something like this - though I'm not sure if FDOT/FTE wants to put the money down to install all-electronic toll equipment, but they are eventually going to do that to the Turnpike starting from the Homestead Extension (FL-821) so I figure it will come sooner or later.

(Edit: Map image is from OpenStreetMap - and modified by me (red dots, toll amounts, road shield images, and exit numbers. Map image is licensed CC-BY-SA.)

[realjd]

SR-429 is an OOCEA road, not FDOT/FTE. I haven't heard anything about Orlando switching to toll-by-plate. I did hear that FTE was thinking about changiong the Homestead Extension to all electronic similar to MDX. And what good timing too - they just finished reconstructing the toll booths for open road tolling with cash lanes off to the side!

[jdb1234]

SR-429 is an OOCEA road, not FDOT/FTE. I haven't heard anything about Orlando switching to toll-by-plate. I did hear that FTE was thinking about changiong the Homestead Extension to all electronic similar to MDX. And what good timing too - they just finished reconstructing the toll booths for open road tolling with cash lanes off to the side!

SR 429 is a FTE road from I-4 to the Orange County line (at least it was when I drove it).  I have heard that the Leroy Selmon Expressway in Tampa is going to cashless.

[Ace10]

Was about to say the same thing - except actually the southern 11 or so miles, at least the southernmost exits up to Exit 11, are maintained by FTE. The US-192 interchange roughly straddles the county line between Osceola and Orange. Past Exit 11 the road does change to OOCEA maintenance - which could throw a wrench into this proposal, but just ignoring the rest of the road, changing around the southernmost 11 miles to ORT just like MDX did sounds like a good idea. Of course this would require some cooperation with OOCEA that I'm not sure they would likely give in to.

[jdb1234]

Was about to say the same thing - except actually the southern 11 or so miles, at least the southernmost exits up to Exit 11, are maintained by FTE. The US-192 interchange roughly straddles the county line between Osceola and Orange. Past Exit 11 the road does change to OOCEA maintenance - which could throw a wrench into this proposal, but just ignoring the rest of the road, changing around the southernmost 11 miles to ORT just like MDX did sounds like a good idea. Of course this would require some cooperation with OOCEA that I'm not sure they would likely give in to.

I knew the southernmost 11 miles were FTE, but for some reason I forgot the county line was at US 192.  I've been on the stretch from US 192 to CR 535 one time because I sorta got lost visiting family in that area.

[realjd]

I've never been on the 429 south of the Turnpike. I didn't know that it was FTE down there. To be honest, I forget that 429 even goes that far south sometimes!

There are no barrier tolls that far south, are there? If it's just a few tolls on the exits, it seems like going to plate tolls wouldn't be worth it at this time.

[Ace10]

There are two barrier tolls south of the Turnpike - one at Independence ($1.25) (north of Exit 15) and one near the Disney Exit ($1.00) (south of Exit 8 ). I wasn't commenting so much on the feasibility of conversion to all-electronic toll collection, but was wondering in an ideal situation, if money was no object, how it would be possible to convert at least the southernmost (FTE) part of 429 to all-ETC. That's the portion I drive the most so I was concentrating mostly on that area.

Edit: 8 ) is not 8).

[Brandon]

Good grief that's a lot of barrier tolls!  It would be better to use one higher priced barrier and put in ramp plazas a la the Illinois Tollway.