Cash payments on the OC Toll Roads...down to zero hour

[FreewayDan]

Orange County toll roads (73, 133, 241 and 261) will be ending cash collection in four hours (as of this post)
https://www.thetollroads.com/

A preview of the new toll signage along the Toll Roads:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/thetollroads/sets/72157644661455334
Token of Appreciation Presented to CPS by TheTollRoads, on Flickr

And some press coverage
http://www.myfoxla.com/story/25503133/toll-roads-in-orange-county-go-cashless-booths-shut-down
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/toll-613901-fox-road.html

[bing101]

Dang I never knew that Orange county had a toll plaza. I just remember the part where its Fastrak lane was the definition of a modern toll road.

[jrouse]

A preview of the new toll signage along the Toll Roads:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/thetollroads/sets/72157644661455334
Token of Appreciation Presented to CPS by TheTollRoads, on Flickr

I worked very closely with TCA on designing those new signs.  It was a really cool project to work on, and I even learned a bit about the MUTCD requirements myself. 

Initially I discouraged them from using any purple, because they were going to allow license plate tolling, like Texas and Florida do.  And they are, but unlike Texas and Florida, the TCA pay-by-plate account is actually a registered account.  Bottom line is that anyone who will use the TCA toll roads must be registered in some fashion.  You can't expect to drive them and just get a bill in the mail - you'll get a violation notice instead of a bill! 

Anyhow, after consulting with a representative from the NCUTCD who I've come to know, I was made to understand that purple is for registered accounts - be they a transponder or a license plate accounts.  I thought in the past that purple just meant ETC with a tag.  Since one can only drive the TCA toll roads as a registered user - either FasTrak or the ExpressAccount license plate account - the signs must be purple. 

They will be offering a "one-time toll" option where you can pay online afterwards.  This will be useful for those who get on the road by accident or who are infrequent users.  There will be signs located downstream of every tolling point that will refer to this program.  These will be white on blue motorist information signs.  We went back and forth with TCA on the use of their URL, thetollroads.com, on these signs , because  MUTCD Section 2F.18 explicitly prohibits the use of a URL on ETC program information signs, unless they're in a spot where motorists can pull off to read them.  That option won't be available on the TCA facilities.  So per Section 2F.18, in that case the signs can only display 4-digit phone numbers.  TCA didn't want to tie in their program with the regional 511 system, so we relented and are allowing them to use the URL.

Should be interesting to see how well this works out, particularly for tourists. 

[vdeane]

Initially I discouraged them from using any purple, because they were going to allow license plate tolling, like Texas and Florida do.  And they are, but unlike Texas and Florida, the TCA pay-by-plate account is actually a registered account.  Bottom line is that anyone who will use the TCA toll roads must be registered in some fashion.  You can't expect to drive them and just get a bill in the mail - you'll get a violation notice instead of a bill! 

Yeesh.  IMO, bill-by-mail (with only a small surcharge if any) should be a legal REQUIREMENT on all all-electronic toll roads.

[oscar]

Initially I discouraged them from using any purple, because they were going to allow license plate tolling, like Texas and Florida do.  And they are, but unlike Texas and Florida, the TCA pay-by-plate account is actually a registered account.  Bottom line is that anyone who will use the TCA toll roads must be registered in some fashion.  You can't expect to drive them and just get a bill in the mail - you'll get a violation notice instead of a bill! 

....

Should be interesting to see how well this works out, particularly for tourists. 

I would expect many tourists to be driving rental cars, and that the rental car companies will register their entire fleets.  If so, tourists may not be able to use the "one-time toll" option -- rather, the rental companies will pay the tolls, then pass those costs on to the tourists with a rip-off surcharge.  Or the rental companies will push even harder to get tourists to rent transponders, as I think they tried with me when I rented a car at the Oakland airport last October.  (I declined, correctly predicting that I'd be crossing a toll bridge only once, in the free eastbound direction.)

Since I'll be renting a car in the San Diego area in late July/early August, I'll find out how the rental companies handle this.  This time, I might not be able to avoid paying tolls, though I probably can at least avoid the Orange County toll roads.

Like Val, I'm offended by the lack of a bill-by-mail option, for people who either don't have Net access through smartphones or otherwise, or can't count on it in the 48 hours after the toll charge.  But the Orange County toll road system does have ExpressAccount pay-by-plate options for users who set up accounts in advance.  Some of those options allow payment in advance or by credit card, without the monthly fees for transponder accounts or invoice fees for pay-by-mail.  (ExpressAccount will only work on toll roads in Orange County except the CA 91 express lanes, not as flexible as transponder accounts which also work elsewhere in California.)

[FreewayDan]

g any purple, because they were going to allow license plate tolling, like Texas and Florida do.  And they are, but unlike Texas and Florida, the TCA pay-by-plate account is actually a registered account.  Bottom line is that anyone who will use the TCA toll roads must be registered in some fashion.  You can't expect to drive them and just get a bill in the mail - you'll get a violation notice instead of a bill! 

With the 48-hour window for the one-time toll option, its just a tad less strict than the cashless toll roads in Houston (Westpark/Fort Bend Parkway/NE Sam Houston/SH 99-Grand Parkway) and the Camino Columbia (SH 255) near Laredo.

One thing the TCA should have done was set up toll payment centers for the people who wanted to pay with cash; similar to the set up for tolls on the Golden Gate Bridge:
http://goldengate.org/tolls/cashlocations_pressrelease.php

The locations (kiosks) could be set up at key locations: shopping malls, museums, amusement parks, local DMVs, etc.

[OCGuy81]

I would expect many tourists to be driving rental cars, and that the rental car companies will register their entire fleets.  If so, tourists may not be able to use the "one-time toll" option -- rather, the rental companies will pay the tolls, then pass those costs on to the tourists with a rip-off surcharge.

Agreed! Much like pre-paying for your gas or paying a huge markup for them to fill it, I could see rental car kiosks at SNA offering an option to pre-pay your tolls, or tacking on a large surcharge if you do venture out onto the 73, for example.

[1995hoo]

With the 48-hour window for the one-time toll option, its just a tad less strict than the cashless toll roads in Houston (Westpark/Fort Bend Parkway/NE Sam Houston/SH 99-Grand Parkway) and the Camino Columbia (SH 255) near Laredo.

....

The high-occupancy/toll lanes here in Virginia give you five days to pay online (with a $1.50 surcharge) if you don't have an E-ZPass, but there is no signage anywhere on the roads mentioning the option. I wonder if that might change after a fatal accident last week when an elderly lady from South Carolina stopped her vehicle at the southern end of the HO/T lanes and was then rear-ended (she was killed and her husband was severely injured). After the five days, you are billed by mail with a surcharge of $12.50 per trip, which increases to $25.00 per trip if you ignore the violation notice. This is a big difference from the jurisdictions that explicitly allow toll-by-plate, such as the Homestead Extension near Miami (they impose a $2.50 per month service charge regardless of the number of trips).

Problem is, as noted further up the thread, how to post this information without putting a URL on the signs. "495ExpressLanes.com" doesn't seem like it should be all that problematic to post, but who knows. It seems to me a potential issue with this sort of signage is that it is likely to appear in an area where there are already a lot of other signs in a short amount of space, such that a sign targeted at someone who is not a regular user of that tolled facility is just one more thing for the confused non-local driver to read.

[mrsman]

With the 48-hour window for the one-time toll option, its just a tad less strict than the cashless toll roads in Houston (Westpark/Fort Bend Parkway/NE Sam Houston/SH 99-Grand Parkway) and the Camino Columbia (SH 255) near Laredo.

....

The high-occupancy/toll lanes here in Virginia give you five days to pay online (with a $1.50 surcharge) if you don't have an E-ZPass, but there is no signage anywhere on the roads mentioning the option. I wonder if that might change after a fatal accident last week when an elderly lady from South Carolina stopped her vehicle at the southern end of the HO/T lanes and was then rear-ended (she was killed and her husband was severely injured). After the five days, you are billed by mail with a surcharge of $12.50 per trip, which increases to $25.00 per trip if you ignore the violation notice. This is a big difference from the jurisdictions that explicitly allow toll-by-plate, such as the Homestead Extension near Miami (they impose a $2.50 per month service charge regardless of the number of trips).

Problem is, as noted further up the thread, how to post this information without putting a URL on the signs. "495ExpressLanes.com" doesn't seem like it should be all that problematic to post, but who knows. It seems to me a potential issue with this sort of signage is that it is likely to appear in an area where there are already a lot of other signs in a short amount of space, such that a sign targeted at someone who is not a regular user of that tolled facility is just one more thing for the confused non-local driver to read.

I know I've commented on this in some of the East Coast threads with regard to EZ-Pass.  But generally, I believe that if you get rid of the toll booths, there must be a reaonable way for the unregistered user to take advantage of the toll road as well, i.e. like pay by plate with a small surcharge.

As far as signage goes for the OC Toll Roads:

1) Make it clear that "NO CASH ACCEPTED"

2) FASTRAK, REGISTERED ACCOUNTS, OR PAY BY MAIL ONLY

On separate signage once you're already on the toll road:

PAY BY MAIL???? MUST PAY TOLL WITHIN 48 HOURS.  INQUIRE ONLINE

While I think it is easier to provide the URL for the pay by mail, I respect the MUTCD's prohibition, since we do not want to encourage web browsing while driving.  Yet, how hard should it be to find the proper website at home with Google, even without the URL.  If I were to look up "CA-241" on Google, hopefully the official Toll Roads website should be among the first 5 entries and within 2 - 3 clicks I should be able to
get all the information I need to pay online.

It is in the interest of the toll road agencies to get as many customers as possible.  If you accept people who aren't pre-registered and/or don't have a transponder, let them know that they can use the tollway as well through a pay-by-mail or pay-by-internet option.

[MarkF]

Cash tolls ended on the OC tolls roads a few days ago.  As mentioned earlier, the tolled ramps have been re-signed, with ALL TRAFFIC now over both the Fastrack and former cash toll lanes, except for some ramps that have coned off the old cash toll lanes (ALL TRAFFIC just over the Fastrack lane, but the sign still is over the width of both lanes).  There are "Video Tolling in Progress" signs as you enter the ramp, and where you used to stop and pay, there are now "Maintain Speed" signs up.  Once you pass that point, there are two signs for those without Fastrack or ExpressPay, the last one showing the tollroads URL.  The mainline toll plazas are now coned off, I wonder if they will be removed.  At points where the tollways intersect freeways, there are now signs saying they are Fastrack and ExpressPay only, I don't think there is any mention of the pay by web option.

Removing the cash option seems like a bad idea to me, as it makes it more inconvenient for the occasional user, so they will be less inclined to use the road.  Perhaps there was a large amount of savings in no longer handling cash.

[rschen7754]

Apparently you can also pay on the mobile app: https://www.thetollroads.com/ontheroads/mobile-app.php

Personally, as someone who doesn't carry cash a lot of the time, I find this more convenient...

[jrouse]

Cash tolls ended on the OC tolls roads a few days ago.  As mentioned earlier, the tolled ramps have been re-signed, with ALL TRAFFIC now over both the Fastrack and former cash toll lanes, except for some ramps that have coned off the old cash toll lanes (ALL TRAFFIC just over the Fastrack lane, but the sign still is over the width of both lanes).  There are "Video Tolling in Progress" signs as you enter the ramp, and where you used to stop and pay, there are now "Maintain Speed" signs up.  Once you pass that point, there are two signs for those without Fastrack or ExpressPay, the last one showing the tollroads URL.  The mainline toll plazas are now coned off, I wonder if they will be removed.  At points where the tollways intersect freeways, there are now signs saying they are Fastrack and ExpressPay only, I don't think there is any mention of the pay by web option.

Removing the cash option seems like a bad idea to me, as it makes it more inconvenient for the occasional user, so they will be less inclined to use the road.  Perhaps there was a large amount of savings in no longer handling cash.

Some of the existing toll plazas will be restriped to provide a truck climbing lane through the area.