Forget TiVo, iPod, or the Treo 600—the hottest electronic gizmo in the Bay Area this summer is the FasTrak™ electronic toll collection transponder. And best of all, it’s free.

“People know a good deal when they see it,” said Rod McMillan, manager of Bridge & Highway Operations for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), which oversees the FasTrak™ program in its role as the Bay Area Toll Authority. “The transponders are free, the sign-up process is easy, and motorists who use FasTrak™ will save a dollar every time they cross one of the toll bridges between now and Halloween—and they’ll never have to stop at a toll plaza again.”

Bay Area residents have opened more than 50,000 new FasTrak™ accounts over the past three months, with about two-thirds of the action coming since late June, when motorists began racing to take advantage of the $1 discount through Oct. 31 for drivers of cars and light trucks who use FasTrak™ to pay their tolls on the Bay Area’s seven state-owned toll bridges. Daily FasTrak™ enrollments, which averaged less than 200 in April and climbed to about 300 by early May, topped the 3,000 mark on each of the last three days in June and soared to new record of more than 4,300 on July 1. Not coincidentally, that’s the same day the FasTrak™ discount and the permanent $1 toll increase approved by voters through Regional Measure 2 went into effect. Tolls for cars without FasTrak™ rose to $3 on the Antioch, Benicia-Martinez, Carquinez, Dumbarton, Richmond-San Rafael, San Francisco-Oakland Bay, and San Mateo-Hayward bridges. On the Golden Gate Bridge, tolls remain at $4 for FasTrak™ users, and $5 for all other vehicles.

In addition to giving a short-term break to motorists who use FasTrak™, MTC and Caltrans are making long-term improvements to promote faster and more convenient travel by dedicating more of the bridges’ toll lanes for the exclusive use of FasTrak™–equipped vehicles. The first of the new FasTrak™–only lanes opened July 11 at the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge toll plaza, and was followed a week later by the debut of a second FasTrak™–only lane at the Dumbarton Bridge. Rollouts scheduled for August include a new FasTrak™–only lane at the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and another at the Benicia-Martinez Bridge. Come September, three more lanes at the Bay Bridge toll plaza will be reserved for FasTrak™–equipped vehicles, bringing to five the total number of FasTrak™–only lanes at the region’s most heavily traveled bridge and smoothing passage for FasTrak™ users approaching the toll plaza from any direction.

The $1 toll increase on the Bay Area’s state-owned toll bridges was approved on March 2, 2004, when by a 57 percent to 43 percent margin, voters in the region passed Regional Measure 2. The toll hike will raise approximately $125 million a year to fund a comprehensive program of ferry service expansions, rail and bus investments, and highway bottleneck relief projects to relieve congestion in the bridge corridors. MTC will administer the revenues from the toll increase and oversee the associated traffic relief projects.

Three Ways to Sign up for FasTrak™
Online: Go to www.511.org and fill out an online enrollment application
By phone: Order an application from the FasTrak™ customer service center by calling 888.725.TRAK (8725) or by calling 511, saying “traffic” at the first prompt, and
then saying “FasTrak™

In person: At the FasTrak™ Customer Service Center, 1849 Willow Pass Road, Concord (in the Park N’ Shop Shopping Center)