Drivers first got a free taste of the new Intercounty Connector. Then last month they were eased into paying tolls to drive the nearly six-mile leg of the new highway.
Starting at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, though, the honeymoon is over.
Drivers will face a new $3 administrative fee per one-way trip if they don’t have an E-ZPass transponder to pay the tolls.
The highway connecting Interstate 370 in Shady Grove to Georgia Avenue in Olney is the state’s first toll highway without tollbooths. Overhead cameras and underground magnets track cars as they travel at highway speeds through the tolling areas, electronically charging the fees that vary from $1.15 to $1.45 per one-way trip for most cars.
| Best deal for E-ZPasses? |
| Customers may want to shop around to get the best deal on an E-ZPass. |
| The electronic tolling system is used in every state east of Illinois and north of Virginia except Connecticut and Vermont. Two dozen tolling agencies offer the transponders, but give varying deals. Some have free transponders but charge a deposit, others offer discounts on their local tolls that can be handy for regular long-haul trips to vacations and some have minimum account balances. |
| But some agencies, such as the Peace Bridge Authority between Ontario and New York state, have threatened to crack down on out-of-state users who don’t use their tolls regularly. |
| In Maryland, it costs $46 to open the account, with $25 in pre-paid tolls and $21 for the transponder. But the state charges an $1.50 service fee per month. Drivers can get discounts on some toll roads around the state if they have an in-state pass but not on the Intercounty Connector. |
Drivers without the electronic transponders will be tracked down by their license plates and levied the tolls by mail — with the $3 surcharge tacked on top. The cost of a round trip could quickly balloon to as much as $8.90, an incentive to push riders to sign up for the E-ZPass.
“If you’re a regular user, it makes an enormous amount of sense because that $3 is a pretty substantial hit. It’s one of the larger ones out there,” said Peter Samuel, editor of Tollroadsnews in Frederick.
Video cameras are getting better at taking clear images of the plates, he said, but it still is time consuming and difficult to track down the drivers to send the bill, especially for out-of-state vehicles. But he doesn’t think state officials will have those issues with the ICC because he said the road likely will carry mainly local traffic.
“They are certainly not going to lose money on a $3 premium,” he said.
But drivers may not want to pay the administrative fees of using a transponder. In July 2009 Maryland started charging $1.50 per month in user fees for the E-ZPasses to help cover part of the expense to maintain the accounts. More than 46,000 closed their accounts within the first six months, according to state data.
Now some drivers say they are shopping around to the other 23 agencies that offer E-ZPasses across the East Coast, looking for ones without such fees.
Louis Wilen ordered three passes from Massachusetts for his family’s vehicles, though he doesn’t think anyone in his household will travel the highway much. Still, he wants to avoid the $3 surcharge when they do, and he wants to avoid paying the $1.50 monthly fee that Maryland charges for its E-ZPasses.
“It quickly became clear Maryland has one of the worst deals around,” he said.
