How Orange County made transportation history and now has zombies

Mine is a zombie transponder. It resembles a fat slice of toast. I got this museum-worthy relic of our transition to a cashless economy shortly after President George W. Bush began his second term in office, and I’ve had it for nearly 20 years. It refuses to die.

It seems incredible, but there are more than a million of these antiquities out there in Orange County. Perhaps you have one, too? They cost some $15 to $30, run on last-century technology and still beep when gliding beneath the toll sensors, gently signaling a reduction in your bank balance when you use the 73 or the 241 Toll Roads, or when you hop on the 91 Express Lane to Riverside, or, delightedly, when you use the new 405 Express Lanes between O.C. and UCLA at the weekday witching hour of 6 p.m. (chortling as you blow past the red brake lights choking the freeway to your right and thinking, “This may be the best $7.15 I’ve ever spent”).

The batteries in these ancient transponders were expected to last just five or so years, but, well, here we are. They work by transmitting a radio signal to the sensors overhead. They are dinosaurs, on the way to extinction.

Both the Orange County Transportation Authority and The Toll Roads began rolling out wee stickers for the corner of your windshield — which don’t require batteries and don’t beep — about five years ago. The stickers are embedded with a microchip that’s linked to your account, and toll sensors silently read that microchip as you glide by.

The stickers cost almost nothing — about 40 cents each — and are free for account holders. (Yes, yes, we got these some years back, but sold the cars they were attached to and, um, only just removed those stickers from our account.)

We honestly didn’t expect to find the transponder thing quite so fascinating. But it turns out that Orange County has made transportation history on this front.

Whether you view toll roads as an abomination of the California zeitgeist (oh, how well we remember people chaining themselves to trees and heavy machinery to thwart progress on the 73) or a logical accommodation to keep up with ever-mushrooming traffic (with people leaving California and so many working from home post-pandemic, why the heck is there always a crush at Jamboree?!), toll roads and lanes are obviously here to stay.

Making history

The mythology of the freeway has played heavily into California’s image, and the whole toll road idea — which began in Orange County back in the 1980s — was denounced as an abdication of California’s very soul.

The Automobile Club of America protested that “Toll roads fail to serve communities. …Toll roads are regressive in nature. …  Toll roads can increase congestion. …Toll roads cost more to build and maintain. …In some areas the use of the toll road will become elitist.”

“Once you start these tolls,” then-state senator Bill Lockyer said in 1986, “they are there forever.”

They may not have been wrong, but Orange County’s population had ballooned by nearly a third over a single decade — from 1.7 million to 2.2 million — and the regular highway system couldn’t keep up.

So in 1987, the Legislature passed a bill giving the new Transportation Corridor Agencies the authority to construct the new roads. In 1990, the Legislature passed a bill telling Caltrans to develop specs for electronic toll collections, which every toll agency in the state would have to follow.

And then it happened. In 1993, the TCA/Toll Roads unveiled FasTrak, “the brand name and logo used for the technology behind toll collection on every tolled bridge, lane and road in California,” proud agency spokesfolks Michele Miller and Shelley Kennedy said by email.

Those first transponders were about the size of a Walkman and required a “smart card” insert. They seemed a bit weird and exotic, and many of us preferred stopping at actual toll booths and handing actual humans actual paper money.

The tech upgraded in 1995, when FasTrak transponders were redesigned to be the size of a coaster and could be mounted to the inside windshield with adhesive strips.

The artifact I still possess, with the radio/battery technology, began its reign around 2004. In 2016, California regulators championed transitioning from this old tech to the newer and cheaper sticker technology, saying it could save some $10 to $14 per unit.

In 2019, the 21st century arrived. TCA/The Toll Roads was the first California toll agency to offer sticker transponders to its customers.

There are also hard case “switchable” transponders with the new technology, but those are for toll lanes that offer discounts for multiple passengers (you convey that by moving the little switch). Our local agencies don’t much use these discounts, but if you travel elsewhere in the state, it can save you money. (You can have both the sticker and the switchable transponder in your car; you won’t be charged twice, and the tech is smart enough to know when to use what, officials said.)

Popular

How much do these transponders cost? Not including taxes, handling and the like, they cost The Toll Roads:

• 38 cents and 43 cents each for the sticker and headlamp/motorcycle transponders. They’re free to account holders.

• Switchable hard case transponders cost $3.99 each. My account tells me they cost $20 to buy.

• The old hard case transponders, like mine, once cost $14.90 each. You can’t buy them anymore!

OCTA said the old legacy transponders cost about $30 (that’s what I remember paying), while the new switchable transponders cost about $10, and sticker transponders cost less than $1. There’s no charge to customers for the stickers.

So, despite any wounds to California’s zeitgeist or complaints about how toll roads are financed or managed, they’ve proven pretty popular.

• Our county of 3.1 million people has almost 3 million registered vehicles (according to the DMV).

• The Toll Roads has 2.4 million account holders, who possess 5.4 million new generation microchip transponders.

• Stubborn old Toll Roads users like me, however, still cling to nearly one million of the old transponders (954,434, to be exact).

• OCTA, which issues transponders for the new 405 Express Lanes, and — with the Riverside County Transportation Commission — for the 91 Express Lanes, has about 700,000 transponders in circulation.

• Of those, about 17% — some 119,000 — are legacy artifacts like mine.

I’m not sure if I feel better or worse knowing there are more than a million folks out there like me. We are urged to get with the program.

Welcome to 2024

Years ago, OCTA’s customers were notified that the old tech is being phased out in favor of the new tech, OCTA spokesman Eric Carpenter said. The rollout began in 2019, paused briefly during the pandemic, then resumed later in 2020.

OCTA folks who still have the old tech can get a sticker transponder for free, and come into the 21st century, by calling 800-600-9191 or visiting www.91ExpressLanes.com.

Toll Roads customers can do the same by logging into their accounts at thetollroads.com and clicking on “transponders,” or via its app.

You’re supposed to get your transponder from whoever runs the toll road/lane that you use the most, but the beauty is that, no matter who issues it, it will work on every toll road in the state.

I took a deep breath and, finally, did it. I ordered my new stickers. They’ll be here in a few days. But what to do with the old dinosaur?

We’re advised to dispose of it the way we’d dispose of any other battery or hazardous household waste, at one of four sites in O.C. (Anaheim Collection Center, 1071 N. Blue Gum Street; Huntington Beach Collection Center, 17121 Nichols Lane, Gate 6; Irvine Collection Center, 6411 Oak Canyon; and San Juan Capistrano Collection Center, 32250 Avenida La Pata).

Mine, however, belongs in a museum. I’m compelled to keep using it until the battery finally quits, or until the tech is completely phased out, though I’m unclear which will happen first. Zombies, as we know, never die.

Source: Orange County Register