TACOMA, Wash. — A state senator announced Tuesday she will be sponsoring legislation to remove all tolls from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
Sen. Emily Randall’s proposal, which will move forward in the senate’s next legislative session in January, would remove the tolls in under two years.
“My community — our friends and family here on the peninsula, our neighbors in Tacoma — have carried nearly all of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge debt since it opened in 2007,” said Randall in a news release. “We have long raised our voices together about the problems with the way this bridge was financed, and the inequity of leaving toll payers responsible for nearly all of the cost.”
Currently, the bridge’s construction costs are projected to be paid off in June 2030. The bill would transfer $772 million from the state’s general fund to pay off remaining debts on the bridge nearly a decade ahead of schedule.
The tolls currently collected on the bridge are used to help repay the costs of building the second span of the bridge, which opened in 2007.