OLYMPIA — The state Transportation Commission has decided to suspend a 50-cent toll rate increase that had been planned for the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
The increase was scheduled to take effect July 1 but has been replaced with an allocation from the state Legislature.
Toll rates — which are collected only on the eastbound bridge and are $6 for cars and motorcycles — are scheduled to remain at current levels through June 30, 2017.
Since July 2012, bridge users have experienced annual toll increases.
The largest annual cost for the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is the debt service payment, and law requires debt service payments, along with other costs like maintenance, operations and insurance, be paid with toll revenues.
The 30-year debt service schedule has payments going up every one or two years.
Historically, traffic volumes have not increased at the pace necessary to meet these growing debt obligations, so tolls went up.
But toll relief arrived this year. The state Legislature provided $2.5 million in gas tax revenues to pay for the bridge’s debt service payments coming due between July 1 and June 30 next year.
The commission will hold a final hearing to reflect in the administrative code the rate suspension decision. The hearing will start 1 p.m. May 17 at 310 Maple Park Ave. S.E. in Olympia.
