Toll Road Isn’t Intimidating

Re “Tollway Intimidation Not a Solution,” Orange County Voices, Dec. 29:

Is Paul J. Pitt referring to the same San Joaquin Hills tollway that I use? The one that has just opened? I believe we can’t be talking about the same tollway! Here is how the system really works, not [as] loosely described by Pitt.

Immediately after the tollway opened, my father received a notice he had violated tollway payment policy and owed $152. The notice provided an 800-phone service number to call with questions or problems. I called for my father, explained the problem. The two $76 fines and resulting problems disappeared immediately. No one challenged or questioned us. The tollway authority empowered the person answering the phone to remove the fine or fee and he did so. No follow-up phone calls were necessary. This was quick and painless.

In addition, the tollway offers more than one payment plan, so I do not know how Pitt came up with his $80 fee. My account works in this manner. I have two transponders and one account with a $30 credit toward tollway fees on deposit. When my balance drops below $10, it will automatically replenish to $30. This is a tremendous convenience to me. If the float earned by the tollway keeps my fees down and encourages this organization to build more roads and to decrease congestion further, hey, it is a bargain for all of us.

Furthermore, because each customer’s account has a different credit balance, I do not know how Pitt can reasonably estimate $8 million is floated by the tollway authority.

Finally, Pitt complains that the tollway should offer “change.” There is some merit to this argument. However, since Pitt obviously knows each tollway exit is not staffed or does not provide change, he should have a stash of change in his car for such contingencies. I remember when I lived in Illinois, not all tollway exits were staffed. Drivers needed to be prepared for these exits or to continue to those that they staffed.

I grew up in California without toll roads and luckily only spent three years driving on toll roads in Illinois. The toll roads in the Midwest are enough to make a driver flee to California! On I-94, just outside Chicago, drivers must slow and stop (on a freeway!) every few miles to pay a toll (imagine this in rush hour!). After a driver pays with cash or coins, the toll road is like the starting lap of the Indy 500. Everyone accelerates at the speed of sound, racing away from the toll booth, toward the next one.

Here, on the San Joaquin Hills tollway, I can drive at highway speeds, through the toll booth and only be inconvenienced by the beeping of a transponder. If a native Californian can manage the San Joaquin Hills tollway, and if Pitt was a state trooper in Illinois, why can’t he manage the San Joaquin Hills tollway?

LYNN CONANT

Newport Beach