Old 520 Toll Building Demolished Monday

The old toll administrative building located on State Route 520 was demolished Monday, as the state launched several years of construction that will conclude in 2014.

The building at the Medina Park and Ride was a remnant of tolling in the past, and its demolishing is the first step toward the reconstruction of the bridge and new tolls that are slated to come online this summer. The peak-hour toll will be $3.50 for those who have a , which is the least expensive payment option.

"Thirty years ago, you'd stop here for the toll booths; this was the administration building for the toll plaza," said Craig Stone, Washington State Department of Transportation Toll Division Director Craig Stone said. "People would stop, including me, to pay your toll — 35 cents.

"This also represents the new tolling coming to 520, with all electronic tolling. No toll booths. It's free flow," Stone said.

The $306-million project will:

• Widen SR 520 and create carpool lanes in both directions.
• Widen the shoulders, so disabled vehicles will not block the lanes of traffic.
• Create three landscaped lids over SR 520, two with access to new transit stops.
• Add a bike and pedestrian lane to SR 520.
• Create environmental improvements, including improvements to streams and noise barriers.

The improvements will be paid for partially through the tolls that will be collected electronically via the Good-to-Go passes. Tolling .

The toll administrative building demolished Monday was a remnant of the last time the 520 bridge collected tolls — which was in cash through staffed toll booths — said Archie Allen, the Washington State Department of Transportation's operations and maintenance superintendent of bridges in the Northwest Region.

The toll collectors would bring the money from the booths on the freeway and deposit them at the administrative building, he said.

Even after the original bridge was paid off in 1979, and the tolls ended, the building's vault was used to store archives, and the building housed equipment and served as a spot for maintenance crews to have breaks, he said.

The Washington State Department of Transportation plans to collect tolls, at the earliest, but will do so using the statewide system.

The delays are due to testing the hardware and software that will be used for the tolling, Stone said.

Stone said WSDOT had a goal of 100,000 new Good-to-Go accounts started, and so far about 75,000 drivers have started accounts.

"We're very pleased with the public response," he said.

According to the WSDOT, the construction work, which began earlier this month with construction barriers being put up, will require complete closures of the SR 520 floating bridge and highway during as many as 20 weekends through December 2013.

The first complete closures will start in June, and drivers will need to plan ahead to find another way across or around Lake Washington June 3 to 6 and June 17 to 20. The SR 520 floating bridge and highway will completely close both weekends from Montlake Boulevard to I-405.

Additional complete closures during weekends are likely each month through November, according to WSDOT.