Your quarters will really add up. On Thursday evening, the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority voted to raise tolls at almost every single booth by 25 cents.
Thursday afternoon, the Expressway board was hearing from the public and plenty of people were complaining about increases at almost every toll booth on the 408, 429, the 417 in Orange County and the Beachline.
People packed in to hear the options the Expressway board is considering. They all include raising tolls 25 cents at just about every plaza.
“Since the first of the month, I’ve used $118 worth,” driver Stuart Ellison told Eyewitness News. “Oh, I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”
Like it or not, the Expressway Authority says it’s banking on a 25-cent toll hike to generate nearly $40 million in extra revenue so it can keep up with about $2 billion in debt from bonds.
“Are the taxpayers of Orange County on the hook if this toll hike doesn’t do enough?” WFTV reporter Eric Rasmussen asked Lindsay Hodges, spokesperson for the Expressway Authority.
“No, I wouldn’t say the taxpayers of Orange County are on the hook at all,” she said.
In the worst case scenario, the Expressway Authority said bond holders could step in and take over the operation, but it has already cut ten-percent from its budget and said raising tolls is only a “last resort.”
But even former Expressway board director Harvey Massey doesn’t buy it.
“They haven’t put their shoulder to the wheel. There’s other things they can do,” Massey said.
Massey said future projects can wait, but the Expressway Authority already has plans to raise tolls again in 2012 to pave the way for another $648 million in construction.
“They couldn’t have picked a worst time, economically, financially, to do what they’re doing today,” Massey said.
Source: wftv.com
25 cents is a large hike percent wise. I only use the toll road to go from Ocala to Christmas..I will start going thru Sanford and NOT pay their stupid price hike…