Drivers crossing the York River between Gloucester and York counties have been paying a toll to use the Coleman Bridge for nearly 20 years — and that won’t change any time soon.
It was expected to take 25 years to pay off the bonds used to finance the widening of the bridge in 1996. About two-thirds of the bonds have been repaid so far, but the bonds only account for about half of the $82.5 million in debt on the project.
The Daily Press reported in 2012 that the bridge’s debt service would be retired in 2021, at which time the toll would be suspended. In the next six years, the $43.3 million in bonds and financing expenses should be settled, according to the Virginia Department of Transportation, but the toll will stay.
The project will still owe $39.2 million borrowed from the state’s Toll Facility Revolving Fund, according to Shannon Marshall, a VDOT spokeswoman.
The fund, Marshall said, provides money to pay for eligible toll facilities in the state and now has an unused balance of $70 million.
The new four-lane bridge, which opened to traffic in August 1996, was built for a total of $97 million, including engineering and construction costs. Construction alone by Tidewater Construction Corp. cost $75 million, according to VDOT. The financial arrangement at the time required a toll to pay for the project.
There was a 20-year span when the bridge was toll-free.
Keith Wood moved to Gloucester County in 1979 — three years after the first toll on the original two-lane bridge was removed. He began commuting to work at the Newport News shipyard 28 years ago. Now, Wood and his wife both commute daily to their jobs, spending close to $500 a year in toll fees.
“That’s just for us to go to work. With shopping or other trips over the bridge we probably pay closer to $600 total,” Wood said. “You are basically paying a tax you don’t get to write off on your taxes.”
Wood said he often questions where the money collected goes and when the toll will end. He recently posed those questions to VDOT and learned he would probably retire from his job before the toll retires from the bridge.
“If it takes 25 years to pay off $43 million, we could be talking 20 more years to pay off the rest,” Wood said.
An average of about 30,000 vehicles use the bridge each day — with 14,500 paying the northbound toll to get into Gloucester County. When the new toll was set in place in 1996, it was the first time the bridge had held a toll since the original charge of 75 cents was removed in 1976.
According to Marshall, the Commonwealth Transportation Board removed the tolls then when the debt on the facility was repaid.
Some say that opened the county to development: During the 1980s, Gloucester was one of the fastest-growing counties in Virginia. According to the 1980 U.S. Census, the county’s population jumped 43 percent. By 1990, the population had increased by nearly another 50 percent.
Population growth has slowed considerably since then. In 2014, the county’s population rose only 0.8 percent.
“It’s an unfair tax for the citizens of Gloucester County and an unfair burden,” said Gloucester County Board of Supervisors member Phillip Bazzani. “This should have been paid for by the state.”
“The toll on this bridge has hurt us economically,” he added. “We cannot get the big-box businesses or our fair share of the big-box businesses in Gloucester County. That would have helped us with growth and would have increased our tax revenue. Without the burden of a toll on the bridge, we could do wonders.”
The Coleman Bridge carries about 900,000 vehicles a month, according to Marshall. The toll is $2 for two-axle cars, or 85 cents per car using an E-Z Pass. The Commonwealth Transportation Board raised the toll on the span in 2005. The increase applied to drivers using the E-Z Pass electronic payment system.
The Daily Press reported in 2005, when the toll was increased, that revenue from bridge users was not enough to meet the bridge’s financial obligations.
The Coleman Bridge generated $6.1 million in toll revenue during fiscal year 2015, according to Marshall. Toll revenue and interest earnings slowly declined since fiscal year 2011. That year the toll collected $6.4 million.
In the past five years, more than $1.5 million has been spent annually on facility operations and maintenance while $3.1 million a year went toward debt service. The remaining revenue — over $1 million each year — is deposited in the facility’s Maintenance Reserve Fund, Marshall said. The current balance in the reserve fund is $6.5 million.
The reserve money is used to pay for bridge and toll plaza costs that exceed annual revenues, Marshall said.
According to VDOT, not all toll revenue collected annually can be used to repay the bridge’s debt service. Toll revenue is first applied to facility operations and maintenance.
How long a toll remains in place depends not only on the volume of traffic crossing the bridge and how much revenue is collected but also on the operations and maintenance needs of the bridge.
Maintenance, according to VDOT, includes inspections, repairs, lubrication, painting, general clean-up and other mechanical issues that arise.
In fiscal year 2015, according to VDOT data, the cost of operations and maintenance jumped to a little over $3 million. Marshall said the existing toll collection system had to be upgraded. The cost for the system upgrade was close to $1.2 million.
As of the end of fiscal year 2015, $16.7 million was still owed on the $43 million in bonds used to pay for the bridge. The bonds were refinanced in March 2006 at a rate of 3.84 percent — a reduction from the original 6.6 percent.
“They should be refinanced again,” Bazzani said. “The interest is killing Gloucester residents. The principal will never get retired with interest like that.”
The state’s Commonwealth Data Point website shows that the bonds were reissued in 2006 and totaled $31.8 million.
According to the state’s repayment schedule, in fiscal year 2007 only $240,000 was applied to principal on the bonds, while over $1.3 million went to interest. The amount applied to principal steadily increases, according to the repayment schedule, and in fiscal year 2015, nearly $2.5 million was applied to principal and more than $780,000 went to interest.
Marshall said no payments are now being made to what is owed to the state’s revolving toll fund — basically meaning a total of $55.9 million is still owed on the bridge. Based on current revenue and expenses, VDOT estimates that $3 million will be paid annually to the revolving fund once the bonds are repaid.
Statewide there are 11 tolling stations from Hampton Roads to Northern Virginia. The only toll on Virginia’s Peninsula and Middle Peninsula is the four-lane Coleman Bridge.
A study by VDOT earlier this year looked at ways to relieve congestion at the Hampton-Roads Bridge Tunnel, and one of the concepts included tolls on the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel and Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel.
This past week, the Hampton Roads Transportation Accountability Commission reviewed a financial proposal that includes a $1 toll on the HRBT by 2025 and a $2 toll on the MMMBT by 2035. The tolls were among several options reviewed by the commision to raise additional funds for road projects across the region.
The plan also suggests tolling the proposed Patriots Crossing corridor — an extension of Interstate 564 that would cross Hampton Roads and connect with I-664 near the Newport News and Suffolk city lines; and adding a toll of up to $3 during peak times on the HRBT. It calls for similar tolls on the High Rise Bridge in Chesapeake.
Marshall said the state is considering tolls as a part of the widening project on Interstate 66 outside the Capital Beltway in Northern Virginia. According to reports, a private proposal for a new tunnel between Norfolk and Portsmouth could also include new tolling facilities that could collect billions of dollars in tolls for an estimated 58 years.
The decision to impose a toll on a bridge is made by the transportation board and the General Assembly, according to Marshall Herman, another spokeswoman with VDOT. The approval for a toll facility is based not only on the need for a new bridge but also on whether projected traffic levels would support the financing.
The two bridges built in 2006 on both sides of the Town of West Point do not carry a toll. The current bridges replaced the two aging bridges that once stood over both the Mattaponi and Pamunkey rivers because of the condition of the old structures and capacity problems. Herman said the traffic levels on those bridges would not support toll financing. A combination of federal and state funding, as well as grants, were used to fund the projects.
“Both of those bridges are just as large and those drivers do not pay a toll,” Bazzani said. He believes the cost of these type of transportation improvements should be shared by all drivers.
Legislation introduced in 2006 and 2007 to remove the tolls on the Coleman Bridge was left in committee.
“Why not restructure the toll so that visitors pay more?” Bazzani asked. “That would alleviate some of the burden on commuting residents.”
The toll on the bridge between 1952 and 1976 offered a reduced commuter ticket option for 30 cents.
Eliminating or reducing the toll, Bazzani said, would help county residents and would help the county grow. Residents would have more money to spend on services and retail in the county, he said, and that in turn would attract more businesses.
“It’s a tax on just a certain segment of Virginia and that segment is mostly Gloucester County,” Bazzani said. “I just don’t understand it.”
The Coleman Bridge expansion was expected to reduce congestion, allowing traffic to flow smoothly during rush hour. The wider bridge has space for disabled vehicles to get out of the way so traffic can keep moving.
The old two-lane bridge was notorious for stopping traffic or slowing it to a snail’s pace.
Wood said he wasn’t sure when the bridge was rebuilt if it would help. The toll facility had him picturing backups for people stopping to pay the fee.
“I didn’t think it would alleviate the backups, but it really hasn’t been an issue,” Wood said. “The electronic payments made it easier.”
“If the toll is going to stay on there to cover maintenance it’s going to be never-ending,” Wood said. “I wish they would give us a clear answer as to when the toll will come off. Is there light at the end of this tunnel?”
Hubbard can be reached by phone at 757-298-5834.
