Country	Version/Note
Australia
Brazil
China
Europe (Mix)
France
Hong Kong	as seen in the animation above
Israel
India
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
Singapore
Spain
South Africa	(SA Personalized Plate Demo)
Taiwan
Turkey
UK
USA	as seen in the animation on the right

Type	Version/Note
Container	as seen in the animation above
Chassis
Crane

The reverberations from the shocking collapse of the Minneapolis I-35W bridge have reached the Puget Sound region. Much of our transportation infrastructure is of the same vintage as the I-35W bridge, or older. The August tragedy is a jarring reminder that long-overdue repair or replacement is an open invitation to disaster.

In Minnesota, within two weeks of the catastrophe, state and local officials worked with stunning speed and bipartisan collaboration to secure a $133 million grant from the federal government to address the sudden loss of a major arterial highway. "Minneapolis needs solutions that work now, not years and years from now," U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters declared in announcing the grant.

Whoever heard of transportation solutions that relieve traffic congestion immediately? Here in Seattle and the Puget Sound region, we are far more accustomed to snail-paced planning and action. We have learned to accept that new highways and widened bridges will inevitably fall short of their intended results because congestion problems in the meantime have grown exponentially.

The "instant" solution devised for Minneapolis and soon to become familiar to the Puget Sound region is captured in two words that should be etched into our rain-soaked Pacific Northwest brains: congestion tolling.

If you have lived here long enough, you will remember the Evergreen Point Bridge tolls. Or if you now commute across the new Tacoma Narrows span, you are also acquainted with tolls.

The twist in "congestion" tolls, also known as congestion pricing or variable tolls, is this: Charges for using highways and bridges will vary according to the time of use and routes chosen. High demand times (i.e., rush hour) and high volume routes (think I-405, SR 520, I-5 from Lynnwood to Southcenter) will cost more.

If the word "toll" conjures in your mind nightmarish images of booths stretched across a highway bulge or at one end of a bridge, with long lines of cars slowing or stopping to pay the toll, you are hopelessly outdated.

Today's toll technology includes electronic tags, transponders, cameras with license plate recognition capability, and a dazzling array of devices that allow drivers to pay tolls without stopping or even slowing down.

Congestion tolling has won over skeptics everywhere it is employed. The experience of other U.S. cities and major urban centers across the world shows that congestion pricing reduces traffic loads in peak times, and increases public transit ridership during those times.

Congestion tolling is coming our way, packaged in the form of a $139 million "gift" from the federal government intended to reduce congestion and provide seed money for a new Evergreen Point Bridge. The strings attached to this grant require imposition of variable tolls for use of the existing bridge.

A study commissioned by King County Executive Ron Sims earlier this year proposes congestion pricing on all the heavily traveled interstate and state highways in King County. The practical effect of this plan, if implemented, will be to change fundamentally the way we think about using our cars to commute, shop, visit family or friends, or catch a Mariners game at Safeco Field.

This is the question proponents of congestion tolling want us all to answer before we hop into our cars: Do I really have to drive my car now, on this route, or do I delay my trip to a different hour, go by a different route, or use public transportation?

Credit Sims with an extra measure of guts for taking the lead in advocating congestion pricing. He expects impassioned resistance, but he is convinced that people in this area are beginning to understand that paying tolls may be a far better way of paying for transportation solutions, than continually raising gasoline taxes to build more highways.

Congestion tolling will require action by the Legislature. So far, legislators seem content to watch and wait, and gauge what kind of fire Sims draws as he floats his proposal. Sims, on his part, is fearless. He points to the recent I-5 closures and the surprising lack of congestion as an indication that drivers here, when they must, are already exercising intelligent judgment in using their cars.

That is the whole point of congestion pricing -- to require us all to use intelligent judgment when we need to get from point A to point B. I am hopeful it will not take a major disaster like the I-35W bridge collapse to get us to do so.