Tolls
When the bridge opened in 1963, the toll was 25 cents in each direction, with the toll plaza on the Terminal Island side. In 1983, the toll increased to 50 cents for westbound traffic but became free for eastbound traffic. By 2000, the Vincent Thomas Bridge was one of only two toll bridges remaining in Southern California (the other being the San Diego-Coronado Bridge in San Diego), during which year tolls on the Vincent Thomas Bridge were eliminated. After the San Diego-Coronado Bridge stopped collecting tolls in 2002, the California Department of Transportation was able to devolve authority over toll bridges to the Bay Area Toll Authority in June 2005.
Aside from the toll plaza now housing California Highway Patrol facilities, an inadvertent remnant of the toll era still exists: entering the bridge from San Pedro on N. Harbor Boulevard and heading eastbound, a sign prominently states below the name Vincent Thomas Bridge the words "Free Direction" (indicating the absence of a toll). A similar sign marking the more heavily used eastbound entrance from Gaffey Street still bears the weathered outline of the words "Free Direction," though the letters were removed likely sometime near the toll elimination in 2000.
Read more about this topic: Vincent Thomas Bridge
Famous quotes containing the word tolls:
“No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.... Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)
“No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.... Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)