Road crews will be working steadily in the next week on the final touches of the InterCounty Connector, posting the final 55 mph speed limit signs, securing guardrails and sealing fence gaps. After decades in the making, the first leg of the $2.5 billion roadway is finally scheduled to open to drivers at 6 a.m. Tuesday.
| How the tolls work The InterCounty Connector has no toll booths — and supposedly none of the ensuing traffic snarls associated with such bottlenecks. Instead drivers can cruise through the tolls at highway speeds and pay automatically using E-ZPass electronic transponders. |
| VARIABLE TOLLS: The tolls change with time of day and by the number of axles per vehicle. Initially the tolls for a two-axle car are: » Peak, weekdays, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.: $1.45 |
| » Overnight, daily, 11 p.m. to 5 a.m.: 60 cents |
| » All other times (nonpeak): $1.15 |
| HOW IT WORKS: Instead of toll booths, the road has overhead E-ZPass readers and sensors buried into the asphalt. The sensors use magnets to register the passing vehicle, cueing the equipment to count how many axles per vehicle. They also cue the overhead reader to scan the E-ZPass transponder to charge the account and cue cameras to video the front and rear license plates so the state can charge drivers without transponders. |
When viewed from Google’s satellite images, the road remains a gash of dirt across Montgomery County. But on the ground, it is more than 5.6 miles of fresh asphalt weaving between housing developments, over streams and under existing roads. It is lined by sound barriers, earth-tone guardrails, and hundreds of thousands of newly planted shrubs and saplings in an effort to blend in and protect the surrounding environment.
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