With tolling on the Hood River-White Salmon Interstate Bridge set to resume on May 1, the Port of Hood River is continuing to urge community members to set up a BreezeBy account to avoid being charged the extra administrative fees that come with the new all-electronic tolling system.
“The main message is that the very best deal is to use BreezeBy, and that it’s free to open an account, your first transponder is free, your money never expires, there’s no monthly fee or anything,” said Genevieve Scholl, the port’s communications and special projects manager. “And you don’t need a bank account to open a Breezeby account — you don’t even need an ID. You just need a vehicle with a license plate and a mailing address.”
The Port of Hood River stopped accepting cash toll payments on the bridge on March 17, after Oregon Gov. Kate Brown issued an executive order calling for entities to suspend non-medical uses of personal protective equipment (PPE). Following a unanimous vote from the Port Commission, BreezeBy electronic tolling was suspended on March 20, with the intent to turn the BreezeBy system back on once an all-electronic tolling system for non-BreezeBy customers was ready to go.
“We’re pushing it to May 1,” said Chief Financial Officer Fred Kowell. “We’ll use every hour of the day until May 1.”
The new system uses license plate recognition (LPR) software to track vehicles crossing the bridge.
After seven days, the data is sent out to a third-party collector, either the Oregon DMV or Duncan Solutions, and an invoice is mailed to the address associated with the license plate informing the registered owner that they owe $5: The $2 bridge toll, plus a $3 administrative fee.
Bridge-crossers will be able to pay the $2 toll online — with no administrative fee if they pay before the invoice is mailed out. Even after the invoice is sent, they can waive the fee if they pay the $2 toll and register for BreezeBy within 30 days.
“One of the things we’re designing is the website and the ability to go in and make a payment,” said Kowell. “We’re trying to make it (the website) as idiot-proof as possible, but we’ve also looked at other tolling agencies to try and just pick a hodgepodge of the best attributes of each agency and what’s realistic for our time period, trying to design a system so we can go live May 1.”
Port staff are working to install signage on both sides of the bridge to inform people of their options to pay online, and are continuing public outreach to clear up misunderstandings about BreezeBy and encourage as many people as possible to switch to that system.
“A lot of the locals do have the misunderstanding that you need a bank account to get a BreezeBy,” said Scholl. “So we really are trying to reinforce to people that you don’t and if you want to top off your BreezeBy balance with cash … you can pop that cash in the drop box and let us know your license plate number and you’ll be fine.”
While the port is urging bridge-users to move towards the BreezeBy system, Commissioner Kristi Chapman said that the point of this alternative all-electronic tolling method is to preserve the toll booth operators’ jobs for when the temporary PPE restrictions are lifted.
“We did this intentionally to save our tollbooth workers,” said Chapman. “There were probably other options we could have looked at and gone forward with that would have essentially eliminated our toll booth people, but this is to protect our people in the long term to keep them as our greeters as they enter and exit our state.”
Said Scholl, “Here’s a lot of concern, it’s actually really heartwarming how many people in the community are concerned that the toll takers are losing their jobs and that this would be a permanent thing.”
The port’s answer: No, the new LPR tolling system isn’t permanent — but they can’t give a date certain that it will be discontinued.
“This virus is giving nobody a date certain,” said Scholl, “so obviously we can’t tell everybody when it’s going to end because nobody knows.”
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