Will You Be Seeing Tolls The At I-69 Ohio River Crossing?
We have been hearing about a new I-69 corridor for months now, but what can you expect when everything is finalized? While it is still uncertain which corridor will be chosen, one thing is certain: you can expect to see toll booths at the Ohio River Crossing from Henderson into Evansville.
According to I-69 Ohio River Crossing Facebook, "each alternative is expected to require a combination of toll-backed financing, traditional funds and grant opportunities to move to construction." Regardless of which alternative is selected, you can expect to see tolls on I-69. They say that the reason behind this is to help fund the building of a new 1-69 will be tolled, regardless of which alternative is selected. The toll revenue is necessary to get a new I-69 bridge and to operate and maintain cross-river mobility in the Henderson/Evansville area.Specifically, if the West Alternative 1 or Central Alternative 1 is selected as the new corridor, you may see tolling along 41 as well.
So how will the tolling work with this new project? According to I-69 Ohio River Crossing:
Tolling will be all-electronic tolling, which means no slowing, no stopping and no lines. Traffic keeps moving.
Sensors on toll gantries are used to read transponders, small devices on the inside of a car’s windshield, and the appropriate toll is deducted from a prepaid account.
For drivers without accounts and transponders, cameras capture license plates and invoices are sent to the registered owners of the vehicles.
You can expect to pay anywhere from $2-$12 per crossing. The price will depend on the time of vehicle and if you have a prepaid account with a transponder set up or not. For those who commute from Evansville and Henderson on a daily basis, this might end up costing you a bit more in travel expenses per month, but shouldn't have any effect on your commute time, as you don't have to stop and pay.
Currently, the I-69 Ohio River Crossing is a work in progress. It may take some time to decide on which corridor will work best. Then, take additional time to complete the crossing and tolls. So for now, it's not going to cost you a thing to cross the bridge, but consider this a heads up that when this process is completed, you will be charged to cross the Ohio River.
What do you think about this? Do you feel that tolling is a bad idea? Or do you not have an issue in helping fund a more efficient and less time consuming way to cross into Indiana or Kentucky?