Golden Ears Bridge toll adjustment takes effect July 15

June 22, 2012

Slight increase covers annual rate of inflation

Tolls to cross the Golden Ears Bridge will change as of July 15, TransLink announced today. The tolls, which pay for the building and operation of the bridge, will rise from 5 to 20 cents, depending on the type of vehicle, to cover the increase in the Consumer Price Index of 1.9% over the past year.

The tolling structure approved before the bridge opened includes an adjustment in toll rates to pay for the costs of operating and maintaining the bridge which increase with inflation.

More and more people are discovering the cost and time savings by using the bridge and usage increased 12.5 per cent in 2011 over 2010, to 9.8 million crossings. That trend is continuing in the first quarter of this year, with over 2.42 million crossings.

Off peak discounts have been implemented in the past to determine if this would generate additional usage and revenue and it did not.

Customers have three tolling options for using the Golden Ears Bridge: with a transponder installed inside the vehicle, which automatically records each crossing; with video registration, in which license plates are registered and photographed each time the vehicle crosses the bridge; and “pay-as-you-go”, in which unregistered license plates are photographed and then traced.

The increases are as follows:

Complete information on vehicle definitions can be found online  at http://www.translink.ca/en/driving/golden-ears-bridge.aspx