Panel Recommends $3.13 Truck Toll for Seattle Tunnel

A joint city-state committee has recommended that large trucks be charged $3.13 during peak hours to use Seattle’s Highway 99 tunnel when it is completed.

The toll rate during off-peak times would be $2.50 for heavy trucks under a scenario recommended by the Advisory Committee for Tolling and Traffic Management. Both tolls are 2.5 times the rate for cars, the Associated Press reported Feb. 24.

Medium-duty trucks would be charged 1.5 times the car rate, amounting to $1.50 off-peak and $1.88 during peak hours.

The rates are designed to keep the tunnel at 80% capacity during peak times, AP said.

The tunnel is scheduled to open in 2015. It will replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct, which was damaged in a 2001 earthquake and demolished in 2011.