For drivers on Miami-Dade's five toll roads -- more than 500,000 on a good day -- scrounging for loose change will be a thing of the past. Transportation officials have announced an ambitious plan to replace all toll collection plazas on the heavily used Dolphin, Airport, Don Shula and Snapper Creek expressways and on the Gratigny Parkway with the all-electronic "pay-as-you-go" SunPass system.

"This will help move things along more smoothly, more efficiently," says Servando Parabar, executive director of the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority. The "open road" system will be phased in over five years beginning in mid-2007. Parabar says it will be the nation's first existing expressway to be converted to an all-electronic system.
Not all drivers are happy. Infrequent users say acquiring SunPass will be a burden. Others complain that they will have to pay for short toll road trips that are currently free because toll plazas are now spaced far apart and entry and exit ramps are open, allowing many to avoid paying. Only 28% of daily riders pay at all. Under the new system, electronic sensors will be placed at all entry and exit points and throughout the length of the expressways. Drivers will be charged incrementally.

Parabar says the system will be more equitable, spreading smaller toll fees over a greater number of drivers. It will also be more profitable too, he says: When fully implemented, revenue will jump about 50% to $170 million annually -- funds for badly needed roadway improvements and expansions in one of the state's most congested counties.