The in basket: Lisa Havens of Poulsbo told me a while back that
her motorcycling husband had devised a means of paying his Tacoma
Narrows Bridge toll without having to have one of the special
motorcycle transponders that some riders don’t like.
He paid $30 to have a piece of auto glass cut to the size of the
smaller automobile transponder and stuck one to it. He carries it
in his jacket and it seemed to be working, she said.
She also wondered whether a motorcycle with a transponder mounted
that is being towed on a trailer behind a car with its own
transponder would be regarded as separate vehicles by the
electronic toll collection readers and get double-billed.
The in basket: Lisa Havens of Poulsbo told me a while back that her
motorcycling husband had devised a means of paying his Tacoma
Narrows Bridge toll without having to have one of the special
motorcycle transponders that some riders don’t like.
He paid $30 to have a piece of auto glass cut to the size of the
smaller automobile transponder and stuck one to it. He carries it
in his jacket and it seemed to be working, she said.
She also wondered whether a motorcycle with a transponder mounted
that is being towed on a trailer behind a car with its own
transponder would be regarded as separate vehicles by the
electronic toll collection readers and get double-billed.
The out basket: No surprisingly, Janet Matkin of the GoodtoGo! toll
collection program didn’t endorse the piece of glass idea but said
carrying a motorcycle transponder on one’s person could work.
“The system is not designed to read a windshield transponder that
is mounted on a piece of windshield glass and carried in the pocket
of a motorcyclist,” she said. “It sounds fairly
dangerous to carry a piece of glass in your pocket and
this is not something (we) would ever recommend.
“A better option is to obtain the motorcycle transponder that’s in
a hard plastic case and sends out a much stronger signal than the
windshield-mounted sticker. The motorcycle transponder is much more
likely to be read when carried in someone’s
pocket, saddlebag, or backpack,” she said.
As for a towed motorcycle behind a car with a transponder, she said
the system will add 90 cents for each axle on the trailer to the
basic $1.75 toll, and might charge another $1.75 for the
motorcycle.
The per-axle add-on for trailers is intentional and was planned
from the beginning. Each axle on a car was originally supposed to
have the same toll as each axle on a trailer, but when $1.75 was
set as the basic transponder toll for a car, the add-on was set at
90 cents per axle to avoid charging in half cents or uneven
numbers. The per-axle charge is identical for cars and trailers at
the toll booths, where the toll is $3.
Charging for a towed vehicle is not intentional and the scanners
have the capacity to recognize the problem, she said.
“However, if both charges do appear on the account, the
customer should simply contact the Good To Go! customer
service center and explain the situation. The second toll will be
deducted from their account.”
