2032.
That’s the year when the tolls are supposed to be removed from the George P. Coleman Memorial Bridge—tolls originally imposed to pay for the bridge’s expansion to four lanes in the mid-1990s.
About a decade after that expansion, the Virginia Department of Transportation widened a pair of beautiful spans over the Mattaponi and Pamunkey rivers in West Point—costing roughly $30 million more than the work done to the Coleman Bridge.
Yet, as anyone who’s traveled through West Point is well aware, there’s been no toll imposed there to offset that expense.
Initially, tolls were imposed on the Coleman Bridge in 1996 with the understanding it would take 25 years to pay off the cost of the widening project. Since that time, that date has been pushed back; in June of 2018, Gloucester supervisors received a presentation from VDOT that included the new 2032 date for removing the tolls (in part because revenues had not met projections).
In the meantime, those with E-ZPass devices continue to p...