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Follow TURFMore toll lanes added to 183-A, to cost 29 cents a mile
183-A tolls, length to change in April
By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Published: 7:43 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012
Tolls on 183-A, the most expensive of Central Texas' five turnpikes on a per-mile basis, will get cheaper when a new 5.1-mile-long section opens in April.
Except where they get more expensive.
Driving the entire length of the road, which will run from Texas 45 North in Austin to Leander, will cost $2.80 for those with an electronic toll tag. That amounts to 29 cents a mile.
Driving the 4.5 miles of existing toll lanes, which now end at RM 1431 in Cedar Park, currently carries a $2 charge for toll tag users, or about 44 cents a mile. After April, that section will cost $1.85, or 41 cents a mile.
However, for those who drive only between Texas 45 North and Brushy Creek Road, the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority is slightly increasing what they pay. The Lakeline express lane toll gantry, currently at 45 cents , in April will increase to 50 cents for toll tag users, and the toll tag rate at the entrance and exit ramps at Brushy Creek Road will go from 45 cents to 54 cents.
In all cases, people without a tag on their windshield get a bill in the mail with a toll rate 33 percent higher, along with a service charge. The tollway, which originally had tollbooths for cash payments, closed those booths several years ago and does not accept cash for tolls.
The Mobility Authority, created by Travis and Williamson counties in 2002, is nearing completion of a $76.7 million extension of the toll lanes to north of RM 2243 . Although the exact opening date of the new toll lanes has not been set, officials this week said it almost surely will occur in April.
The authority, when it built the original 4.5 miles , also built free-to-drive frontage roads from RM 1431 north for another 7.1 miles to near the South San Gabriel River, leaving room in a wide median for future toll lanes.
The new section will have a single main lane toll gantry, just north of Scottsdale Drive, carrying a toll of 95 cents . A driver getting on the tollway at RM 1431 and going the rest of the way on the express lanes thus would pay an even lower per-mile rate, about 18.6 cents .
The frontage lanes, which are interrupted by several traffic lights, will remain free.
All of these per-mile rates exceed what the Texas Department of Transportation is charging on the other four tollways in Central Texas. Driving the 49-mile length of Texas 130, for instance, costs $5.40 for toll tag users, about 11 cents a mile. Texas 45 North and Texas 45 Southeast each cost about 10 cents a mile.
Unlike TxDOT, which uses state and federal revenue to subsidize expenses of its tollways, the Mobility Authority has no taxing authority and must use tolls to cover all of its operating, maintenance and debt costs.