Mackinac Bridge Turns into Final Main Bridge to Take Tokens

Because the nation’s most closely used paid thoroughfares transition to free-flow cashless tolling methods with out toll cubicles, it appears inconceivable that toll street authorities are nonetheless coping with proprietary tokens. With digital toll assortment methods like E-ZPass and FasTrak changing into a near-mandatory facet of driving on America’s toll highways, tokens look like relics of a bygone age.

Of the ten longest suspension bridges in the US, the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan was the final to just accept tokens as a type of toll fee. The Mackinac Bridge Authority (MBA) stopped accepting tokens at toll cubicles in September 2019 and commenced refunding the token in circulation for his or her money worth. On December thirty first, 2022, the MBA will finish its token redemption program.

MBA Bridge Director Kim Nowack mentioned:

“Only some prospects herald tokens anymore for reimbursement and there’s fairly a paperwork course of every time they do. We’ve given prospects three years to promote again their tokens to us and it’s time to show remaining tokens into collectors’ gadgets.”

The five-mile-long Mackinac Bridge connects the Decrease and Higher Peninsulas of Michigan throughout the Straits of Mackinac. With a 3,800-foot important span, the Mackinac is the third-longest suspension bridge in the US. The bridge had over 12,000 automobiles crossings per day in 2021.

For comparability, New York Metropolis’s Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, the longest-suspension bridge in the US, stopped accepting tokens 5 12 months in the past. New York Metropolis’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority ceased promoting tokens for its bridges and tunnels in 1998, apart from Staten Island residents to cross the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge between Brooklyn and Staten Island at a reduced price. Using bodily resident tokens continued till the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge went cashless in 2017.

Till the top of the 12 months, tokens can nonetheless be refunded on the Mackinac Bridge Authority Workplace on the bridge’s north finish. The primary 24 tokens might be redeemed for the total worth of $4 per token, then $1.50 for each token thereafter. MBA officers consider that just one % of tokens issued are left in circulation. Although, I wouldn’t be stunned if the tokens grow to be desired memorabilia.