E Zpass

E-ZPass might not be as E-Z on your wallet after July. The Maryland Transportation Authority proposed yesterday to begin charging owners of the electronic toll-collection devices a fee of $1.50 a month - whether they use them or not. The authority also outlined plans to charge E-ZPass users for new or replacement transponders and to raise tolls by 33 percent to 80 percent for heavy trucks and vehicles pulling trailers. The changes, which are expected to be approved this month, are part of a package of measures the authority is proposing this year in order to raise an added $60 million to finance its operations.

In Annapolis, when the going gets tough, it's time to make it appear like you're suffering, too. Let us not shed too many tears for Maryland lawmakers for surrendering their free E-Pass transponders and their days of toll-free driving. House Speaker Michael E. Busch and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller announced the sacrifice Wednesday and justified it as a way to "find efficiencies and reduce unnecessary spending." Well, that may produce savings running into the tens of dollars - or none at all since lawmakers receive $500-a-year expense accounts for business travel costs that could be applied to tolls.

Travelers who voluntarily undergo a background check and pay an annual fee will be allowed to move through airport security checkpoints much faster under a new government program starting next year. Kip Hawley, head of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, announced recently that he expects the program to be fully operational in June. The TSA will oversee the program and check participants against terrorist and criminal databases, but private companies hired by individual airports will recruit the travelers, gather their personal information, and verify identities at security checkpoints.

The Ehrlich administration unveiled a "conceptual" plan yesterday in which motorists who use the Intercounty Connector would pay about a third of the highway's construction cost without ever seeing a tollbooth. State Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan said the administration is strongly considering a plan in which variable tolls - collected electronically - would be used not just to help pay for the road but also to control congestion. Flanagan told the governor's Transportation Task Force that his agency is considering E-ZPass technology to collect all tolls on the proposed highway, projected to open about 2010.

Almost 5,000 E-ZPass subscribers in the state closed their accounts last month after a $1.50-a-month fee took effect, the Maryland Transportation Authority said Friday. The 4,990 customers who dropped their accounts in July were the most for any month since the authority voted in January to impose the fees. According to spokeswoman Teri Moss, Maryland continues to have 557,000 active subscribers to the electronic toll collection plan. She disputed published reports that 19,000 customers had filed requests to drop their accounts, saying that was a tally of inquiries about possible cancellation.

Considerable uproar could be heard earlier this year when officials at the Maryland Transportation Authority announced that beginning in July, E-ZPass subscribers would for the first time be required to pay a $1.50 monthly fee on top of what they're already charged for tolls. Protesters made two predictions: first, that many people would drop Maryland E-ZPass accounts; and second, that the result would prove counterproductive as more people paid tolls manually, and the backups at Baltimore area tunnels, bridges and other MdTA facilities grew worse.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. unveiled a new ad campaign yesterday in which he and Comptroller William Donald Schaefer promote the use of electronic toll technology as part of this year's effort to speed summer travel across the Bay Bridge. The campaign, with an estimated cost of almost $900,000, will use billboards and radio and TV ads to encourage Marylanders and others to sign up for E-ZPass to help ease congestion at tollbooths. The administration says the ads are part of a broader strategy to reduce congestion during the trip to Ocean City and other Eastern Shore destinations.

Maryland's M-TAG electronic toll service will link up with the East Coast's E-ZPass system by the end of the year, allowing M-TAG customers to move with ease through tollgates from Massachusetts to West Virginia. In both systems, customers affix a small transponder to their vehicle's windshield. At a tollgate, a computer reads the transponder, deducts the toll from a prepaid account and permits the motorist to pass without stopping, saving time for the driver and reducing congestion. E-ZPass operates in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia, and has more than 5 million customers.

The Maryland Transportation Authority, inundated with requests from drivers to close E-ZPass accounts, says that the vendor administering the system has beefed up staffing and shortened the time it takes to process refunds. Account closures totaled 13,820 in July and August - or about eight times the average number of closures for a two-month period - after Maryland's E-ZPass program began charging owners of the electronic toll-collection devices a fee of $1.50 a month. Some motorists have complained that they were charged the fee as they were waiting for their accounts to be closed.

Over vocal objections from the public, the Maryland Transportation Authority's board voted yesterday to raise truck tolls at its bridges and tunnels on Interstate 95 and to impose a $1.50-a-month fee on its E-ZPass customers. The board voted unanimously after hearing comments from Marylanders who turned out for a public meeting near the Key Bridge on the authority's proposed package of revenue increases - designed to make up for a shortfall caused by a drop in traffic that is part of a national decline in driving.