February/March 2009 (Volume 34, Number 4)

Ask Not for Whom the Bridge Tolls

By Leslie Stewart

The Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) received a triple dose of bad news in December. Responsible for operating and maintaining the seven state-owned bridges in the Bay Area, BATA was presented with:

• A seismic evaluation of the Antioch and Dumbarton bridges with a retrofit estimate of $950 million;
• An analysis of bridge traffic showing reduced toll income over the past five years; and
• A report on the impact of the national credit crunch on BATA’s ability to finance construction bonds for current and future retrofit work.

Earthshaking Concerns
The Antioch Bridge crosses the San Joaquin River on Highway 160 between Contra Costa and Sacramento counties; it is the easternmost bridge in the region and carries about 15,000 vehicles a day. The Dumbarton Bridge is the southernmost bridge, and carries 60,000 vehicles per day across the San Francisco Bay between Fremont and Menlo Park on Highway 84. The two bridges are the newest in the region, and were designed to meet strengthened engineering criteria put in place after the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, so they weren’t included in the initial retrofit evaluations after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Updated engineering standards indicate that both now need retrofitting with such measures as isolation bearings between the bridge deck and support structures, cross bracing for support columns, and stronger bridge approaches.

The $950 million price tag — $313 million for the Antioch Bridge and $637 million for the Dumbarton Bridge — includes a hefty allowance for contingencies and risk, drawing on previous experience with retrofit planning where costs escalated unpredictably. The environmental and design work is only 35 percent complete and these estimates will change. However, this conservative approach has already proven itself with BATA’s management of the retrofit on the eastern span of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, where as much as $250 million could remain in the contingency fund after work is finished.

Declining Bridge Traffic
“BATA is the banker for these bridges, so the first question that comes to mind is, how are we going to pay for this?” asked Steve Heminger, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), which also serves as the board for BATA. He explained that the decrease in toll revenues and the “huge dislocation in the credit market” meant that it would be impossible to pay for the additional retrofit work from the current resource streams.

“Toll-paying traffic is the mother’s milk of the enterprise — that’s how we pay all the bills here,” said Heminger. However, fewer cars are crossing the bridges. A weak economy has repressed job growth, and sharp spikes in gas prices pushed many commuters onto transit such as BART — a benefit for the region, but a financial hit for bridge tolls. In addition, at peak commute hours, fewer of the cars crossing bridges are paying for the privilege. “We’ve seen a heartening trend” to more carpools, said Heminger, but “carpoolers pay the same toll as BART riders do: zero.”

Weighing Toll Increases in a Credit Crunch
The credit market crisis means it is highly unlikely that BATA can expect to get rates like those which made the last toll hike so effective in financing previous retrofit bonds, so other options are needed for funding retrofits and ongoing operations. These include operating cost savings such as restructuring toll collections; increased collection efficiency for toll violations; turning to the state and federal governments for funds; and an unavoidable increase in bridge tolls, according to Heminger’s report. He acknowledged that “there is never a good time to start a conversation about raising tolls, and the middle of a recession is probably the worst.” However, he also told the authority, “We have reached the point with a four dollar toll that we have squeezed everything out of it that we can.”

Three alternative packages of toll increases have been proposed. All of them would raise auto tolls from $4 to $5 and would increase per-axle tolls for trucks, which have historically had smaller percentage toll increases than autos. Two options would also charge carpools, as is the case on most other toll bridges and tollways in the country. Implementing carpool tolls would require carpoolers to use the FasTrak electronic toll system to keep the time savings that makes carpooling attractive.

Heminger stressed that BATA cannot delay a decision on increased tolls for very long. These strategies must all be implemented together to keep BATA on a sound financial footing and enable it to perform its role in keeping the bridges safe and functioning. By January 2010, the remaining environmental impact evaluations and design work will be complete for the retrofits of the Antioch and Dumbarton bridges, and the finances must be in place to allow the authority to fund contracts for the work.

Other Funding Sources and Legislative Action
BATA will seek federal funding for the retrofits, where appropriate, either as part of the economic recovery package or the upcoming federal authorization legislation. Previously, the authority has chosen not to compete with the Golden Gate Bridge district for federal retrofit funding.

At the state level, BATA will apply to add the Dumbarton and Antioch bridges to the state toll bridge seismic retrofit program, making them eligible to receive any unused contingency funds after completion of the eastern span. John Barna, executive director of the California Transportation Commission (CTC), told BATA members, “These are not just Bay Area bridges. These are bridges that connect essential parts of the state system and therefore from the CTC standpoint these are bridges that the entire state needs to support the retrofit of, much like we have done on almost 2,000 bridges statewide.”

However, while in past years the state has picked up 40 percent of the cost of retrofitting state-owned Bay Area bridges, the current state budget crisis may change this split. Instead, BATA will seek legislation to allow greater local control over toll bridge operations and to acquire the authority to put additional regional funding measures on the ballot similar to Regional Measures 1 and 2. Congestion pricing authority and the authority to integrate the bridges into a future high-occupancy toll network are also legislative goals that would gain flexibility for the region.

Changes in FasTrak will be part of the FasTrak Strategic Plan Update scheduled for February 2009. Consideration of the toll increases will continue over the coming months, with implementation of a final package scheduled for January 2010.

For further reading:

BATA Bridge Facts

Antioch/Dumbarton Seismic Evaluation and Toll Bridge Funding Analysis