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Jul 1, 2009 6:14 pm US/Central
Some Drivers Question Cashless Bush Turnpike
IRVING (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
Wednesday marked the first day that drivers on the George Bush Turnpike can travel the 30 mile stretch of road without paying in cash. Only toll tags and the Zip Cash program are used. But with half a million people using the roadway every day, you can imagine there might be some questions and complaints.
If you do not have a toll tag, you are unable to pay when you pass through the toll plaza.
Toll booths on the George Bush Turnpike are closed and blocked. The free-flowing toll tag lanes are now open for all drivers. Traffic flow will eventually turn into cash flow for the North Texas Tollway Authority, when drivers are billed later down the road.
The new cashless system may keep the Bush Turnpike free from gridlock, but there was still plenty of traffic on Wednesday afternoon.
Katherine Wall is not buying what the NTTA is touting. She still has the $1 payment check that she sent to the NTTA after flying through a toll lane with no toll tag in 2007. The agency sent the check back to her two years later, and attached a $70 penalty for non-payment.
The cashless toll system, Wall believes, could cost drivers without toll tags more money in the long run.
Tollway officials maintain that drivers without toll tags will be billed in a timely manner, after a series of toll uses.
Eventually, all toll roads in North Texas will be cashless.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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