Jim Vest has heard the rumors of tolls jumping to $7.50 next year.
He has fielded pointed questions from people wanting to know how his agency can, in good conscience, continue to charge travelers to cross a bridge they claim is already paid for.
As executive director of the Mid-Bay Bridge Authority, that comes with the territory.
So does separating the fact from the fiction.
“It used to really bother me,” Vest said of rumors he has heard for all 20 of his years on the job. “It doesn’t so much anymore.”
Vest says it is a cold hard fact that tolls on the Mid-Bay Bridge will not increase to $7.50 next year. It is likewise written in stone, he said, that there will be no bridge toll hike of any amount before Oct. 1, 2015, the beginning of the 2016 fiscal year.
“That is not next year,” he emphasized.
But the world is full of sobering economic realities, and one of those is that the people who emailed Vest about his paid-off bridge are off-base too.
In fact, the Mid-Bay Bridge, built with $81 million in bonds in the early 1990s, these days carries a debt load of $260 million.
That’s why it is possible, Vest concedes, that if the Bridge Authority does find it needs to raise tolls for the third time in its existence, the cost of the trip across could go from $3 to $4 for two-axle vehicles and $2 to $3 for SunPass holders.
Whether the toll goes up or down is determined by what it takes to service the Bridge Authority’s outstanding debt, said Rolin Sayler, Vest’s deputy executive director.
“It’s not a choice of the Mid-Bay Bridge Authority; it’s one of the terms of the loan,” he said.
While the “bridge” debt has increased exponentially, it is probably unfair to think of the Mid-Bay Bridge any longer as just the Mid-Bay Bridge.
In 2014, it will become one of six bridges — albeit the grandest — crossing waterways along a 16-mile thoroughfare known as the Niceville Corridor.
The Niceville Corridor, a $143 million project initiated in 2009, will allow travelers coming through Crestview to Destin, or vice versa, the ability to roll straight through without hitting a traffic light.
“The biggest transportation project in the county,” as Vest called it, will run from State Road 85 south of Crestview to Danny Wuerffel Way in Destin.
It could save drivers 20 minutes getting from one end of Okaloosa County to the other, Vest predicted, and the headache of 14 stoplights.
But flying along the corridor will come at a price.
A toll plaza is part of what’s being constructed as the Niceville Corridor is taking shape, and all of those travelers the Bridge Authority hopes will use the roadway from one end to the other will be required to pay two tolls.
Completely electronic, the Niceville Corridor toll booth will be located approximately midway between the north and south ends of the roadway.
Plans are to charge two-axle drivers $1.50 to pass through the toll station, or $1 if the vehicle coming through is equipped with SunPass.
The license plates of those not equipped with SunPass will be read and a bill, complete with a $2.50 monthly processing fee, will be sent to the address of the driver.
While plans are to offer pre-paid passes that will eliminate the processing fee, drivers traveling without SunPass from Crestview to Destin using the Niceville Corridor and Mid-Bay Bridge will, in 2014 and most of 2015, pay $7 for a one-way trip along the entire route. Subsequent trips that month would cost $4.50.
If the Mid-Bay Bridge toll goes up to $4 in October 2015, that same one-way trip along the entire route would increase to $8 without SunPass, with subsequent trips costing $5.50.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.