Local commuters have had nearly a year to get used to the toll on the State Route 520 Bridge.
Last December, the Washington State Department of Transportation instituted a toll on the State Route 520 Bridge to help pay for a $4.65 billion plan to improve SR 520 from Seattle to Redmond.
Improvements include landscaped lids over portions of 520, a wider roadway, increased carpool lanes, a bicycle and pedestrian lane and environmental upgrades. The state legislature decided that $2.37 billion of the amount will be paid through state and federal funding and tolls. Where the rest comes from has yet to be determined. The entire project is slated to be finished by 2014.
So perhaps you've gotten a Good-to-Go account, or looked for toll bills in your mailbox, or just rerouted around the bridge in order avoid the toll, which currently is $3.59 at peak hour -- if you've prepaid via Good-to-Go.
So, at Patch, we've decided to mark the occasion by offering to pay for one reader's toll for a week with a prize of $35.90.
After a year of paying the 520 Bridge toll, or finding another route, tell us why you need us to cover your bridge toll for a week in the comment section of this article.
The winner will be randomly drawn from the comments on this article that are left between Nov. 30, 2012 and 11:59 p.m. Dec. 13, 2012.
Full rules are attached to this article.
The selection process is -random-, so the reasoning isn't important, but Patch should award that $35 to me because I won't send it right to the hungry beast of government. Instead, I'll toast with it at Joey's Bellevue.
http://kirkland.patch.com/articles/video-story-award-winning-chef-holly-smith-opens-up-on-dining-and-kirkland http://redmond.patch.com/articles/fork-dork-looking-back-at-some-of-the-best-restaurants-of-2011-36c4abe5 http://redmond.patch.com/articles/redmond-restaurants-gives-charities-a-boost-through-dining-program
We had some bus passes. We live in Bridal Trails, can easily walk to the Park & Ride or catch the 245 (e.g.) on 70th. Wanted to catch a movie in Bellevue on Thanksgiving Saturday and figured we'd try the bus, missing traffic and parking issues. Wrong. It is one exit (and one freeway intersection) from 70th to NE 8th. The Bellevue Transit Center is in downtown Bellevue. But you can't get directly from anywhere near the Kirkland P&R to the Bellevue TC. Every route we found involved going to another city and changing buses. 45-90 minutes. So I drove it. We timed it. 7 minutes. Plus 3 for parking, which is less than it would have taken to walk to or from the bus to Lincoln Center. Driving back was 9 minutes (more traffic) but no parking delay... and no walking delay. For the few miles, gas was insignificant, but we spent a total of 19 minutes rather than, estimated, about 2-1/2 hours (150 minutes) in commute. That two hours has value too. I'm not a great fan of the transportation planners in western Washington state.