For good or ill (and maybe a little bit of both), the tolls are coming off. The impact of this change will go beyond dollars and cents to motorists. The toll removal is likely to define population change on the Middle Peninsula in the next generation.
With Gov. Youngkin signing the state’s budget on Friday, it became official that tolls on the George P. Coleman Memorial Bridge will be removed by January 1, 2026.
Maintaining the tolls to pay off the widening of the bridge from two to four lanes just became too costly, and counterproductive. According to a January update from the Virginia Secretary of Transportation to the House of Delegates’ Appropriations Committee Transportation and Public Safety Subcommittee, at present, about 45 percent of toll money collected was expended on toll operating expenses, and the present toll facility is at “end of life” and MUST [the report used all caps] be replaced within six months in order to continue collecting tolls, at a cost of approximately $6 ...