THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 26, 1995 TAG: 9505260499
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines
Unless there is a last-minute driving frenzy, thousands of commuters will be left holding worthless toll tokens and tickets when the Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway becomes a freeway Thursday.
The coupons and coins can't be used on any other highway, and the state is not offering refunds.
As of April 30, there were $179,095 worth of Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway tokens and $192,130 worth of discount toll tickets still on the road.
That equals between 1.2 million and 1.8 million uncashed tokens and 1.3 million uncashed tickets - about a coupon and a coin for each of the 1.5 million residents of Greater Hampton Roads.
Using April as an average month, the total translates into nearly a year's supply of tokens alone that have yet to be used.
There are already signs of people unloading the highway currency along the 12.1-mile route. Toll plaza officials say token use is up heavily this month. In addition, commuters are trying to pay the 10-cent automatic coin collectors at expressway ramps with their surplus 15-cent toll tickets, jamming the machines from Witch Duck Road to Lynnehaven Parkway.
And total revenue is down for the road, a sign that fewer people are paying their fares at all as the tolls inch toward oblivion.
So what is to become of the leftover tokens and tickets?
More than likely, say transportation department officials, they will go the way of the shekel and other outdated currency. One state transportation official said they'll make excellent souvenirs. Any still held by the department, he said, will be destroyed. Officials are considering selling the tokens and tickets as scrap.
The 25-cent toll plaza and the 10-cent automatic tolls will be removed Thursday.
The General Assembly passed legislation this year calling for the toll removal on July 1. Gov. George F. Allen moved that date up to Thursday by executive order, saying the earlier date would help avoid backups during the Fourth of July weekend.
The tolls will come off Thursday, just after midnight. Gov. Allen is expected to come to the toll plaza later that day to hail the end of the coin-tossing.
The tokens were first used in April 1968 for commuter convenience - speeding up traffic at the toll plaza and the exit tolls.
In January 1968, the toll road ordered the first 35,000 tokens at a cost of $1,190.90. But in August 1968, four months after the tokens were first used, the toll road had to order 10,000 more because of an unexpected increase in traffic.
The tokens have always been sold at face value and never offered a discount. Books of tickets, sold at $7.50 for 50, offer a 10-cent discount at the 25-cent toll plaza.
There are three denominations of tokens - 15 cents, 10 cents and nonrevenue. The nonrevenue coins are not sold and are used only by toll road employees.
Transportation officials have been adamantly against buying the tokens back.
``It would be incredibly difficult,'' said Secretary of Transportation Robert E. Martinez.
James W. Atwell, the department's assistant commissioner for finance, said ``the problem with that is that if we had tried to redeem them, we could have tickets and coins that could be redeemable for years and years. We just don't want that liability out there indefinitely.''
Atwell added that the state did not redeem ticket books when tolls were taken off of the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike. That toll road, a portion of Interstate 95, did not accept tokens when it closed.
``The public has had advanced notice,'' he said, ``so that they will not be caught with a supply on hand.''
Vina B. Clifton, the sole accountant at the toll plaza since it opened in December 1967, received a call recently from a desperate man.
While rummaging through a bureau drawer, the man found ticket books for the Downtown Tunnel, the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel and the Midtown Tunnel. All have had their tolls lifted over the years. The man wanted to know if he could exchange them. And Clifton politely said: No.
``I don't know,'' she said, ``where he was at.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
BETH BERGMAN/Staff
by CNB