Hundreds of toll tags sold so far for Cesar Chavez Express Toll Lanes

Drivers have been able to bypass rush hour traffic with the Cesar Chavez Express Toll Lanes for nearly a month and are adapting quite well, according to the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority Executive Director Raymond Telles.

“The response so far I think has been fairly positive in terms of people looking for tags,” Telles said.

Numbers from the North Texas Tollway Authority, the organization near Dallas that sells the toll tags, show the response since tags went on sale Jan. 10. So far, just 468 tags have been sold to use the new lanes that cost $85 million to construct. Three hundred and ten of them were purchased online. One hundred and one through the NTTA call center and 57 at El Paso Ace Cash Express locations, but that cash option is no longer available.

“We’ve been working with the city of El Paso to create the option at the city’s One Stop Shop,” Telles said. The RMA hopes the tags will be for sale again in person by the end of February.

Currently toll tags can only be purchased online, over the phone or by mail. Click here for more information.

Telles said heavy use times for the lanes are during morning and evening rush hours. CRRMA is planning on going after what’s called “habitual” violators, and that includes foreign license plates.

“What we are proposing is to install technology at the city of El Paso bridges that would essentially identify the license plate immediately,” Telles said. He said the question holding Mexican violators accountable is often one of the first three he’s asked by people.

The first part of the Interstate 10 southern relief route is up and running, now able to accommodate additional traffic, that planners are sure we’ll see in the years ahead. Soon toll lanes may be linking I-10 on the west and east side of El Paso via the Cesar Chavez Border Highway.

Telles said drivers aren’t considered violators until they’ve been sent a bill through the mail and fail to pay. Telles is hoping before the next RMA board meeting he will have numbers on how many people have driven through the lanes without paying.

One viewer called in to note Wednesday that drivers who pay by mail have to pay double the amount of those who have toll tags, which is true according to the signs above the lanes.