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I was traveling to San Francisco last weekend and went through the Golden Gate Bridge. I have just received an 8 USD toll invoice by mail (they use a plate reader).
Is the toll fee indicated to the car drivers before entering the bridge? I didn't see any sign but could have missed it as it was at night (and street signs in the US aren't that well designed).
The toll seems to only apply for the outside San Francisco -> inside San Francisco bridge direction (i.e., ~southbound).
First, there's a "LAST EXIT BEFORE TOLL" sign alerting you that you have 1/2 mile to exit before the toll.
Then, there's a sign advising you to call 511 for "travel info" and "toll info." Not a particularly useful sign, but it does further indicate the presence of a toll ahead.
Then there's another a "LAST EXIT BEFORE TOLL" sign at the southbound Alexander Avenue exit, which is your last chance to get off before driving over the bridge. The sign stating the toll price is a short distance after the exit; you're already committed at the point you see it.
If you enter the freeway from that last exit, you'll find two TOLL signs and an opportunity to go right (to cross the bridge and pay the toll) or left (to go north, which is not tolled).
The toll information is also on the bridge's website. The toll is authorized by federal law; I wouldn't spend a lot of time trying to fight it. The bridge district's ordinance states:
LIABILITY FOR TOLLS The driver of every vehicle, except a bicycle and as otherwise provided in this Master Ordinance, which enters upon the Bridge, shall become immediately liable for the toll charge prescribed by the Board of Directors of the District for the passage of such vehicle over the Bridge.
As a practical matter, there's no real way to avoid some toll if you want to get back to San Francisco, short of an extremely long detour. A 20+ mile detour will mean you pay the (slightly lower) Bay Bridge toll instead, while a completely toll-free route would add about 100 miles to go around the Bay.
And yes, the toll only applies southbound (into SF). Driving northbound is free. Walking or biking the bridge is also free.
Yes, the toll signs are plainly displayed, and at least two on any approach. You can fire up Google Earth or Google Maps, drag the "little man" figure to any of the blue lines on the map, and enter Street View (which are photos taken from roving automobiles with special cameras on their roof) and travel US-101 or Doyle virtually and see the signs for yourself.
Your answer is that you missed the signs. That is either because you have not developed the habit of reading signs, or the approaches to the Golden Gate are fairly high on "pilot workload", and you may have had other safety tasks which took priority for your attention.
Signs in the US have several color schemes:
The signs describing the route to the Golden Gate Bridge are green or blue, but all the toll-related signs are yellow, often an inset on a green or blue sign (which itself is notably weird to the experienced eye). Part of the rhythm and flow of driving is learning what to ignore; I could see where someone unpracticed in US driving could overload on the many blue, green and brown signs in the area.
What's more, most people use nav's ... And they neglect to tick the "Avoid Tolls" option. Some navs present a no-toll option as one of the three choices. However in this case, the shortest toll-free option is via I-580 and CA-237 in Milpitas/San Jose, not really viable.
We often get "Was this toll entrance properly signed?" I can tell from direct experience that I got out of a carpool lane ticket when signage was wrong by design. So it could happen, and I approve of arguing the point when it is so. It just isn't so here. You must pass and disregard at least 2 signs on every approach to this entrance.
One thing toll districts are starting to do is use purple signage. But even then, people swear they didn't see it.
"License plate scan without penalty" is the normal fare collection on the Golden Gate Bridge, and other systems are going to it as well because it's cheaper and faster than staffing toll takers. Golden Gate Bridge adopted this early, because there is simply no sane place to put the toll booths; the old toll booth setup was a dangerous nightmare.
Now some of these "license plate scan without penalty" systems have a discount for operating with a toll tag, and in some cases (Chesapeake crossing) the toll tags empower further multiple-trip discounts which can be substantial. Some people call this discount a "penalty against those who do not qualify for the discount". I think that's silly.
I also don't take much stock in the argument that "It's a huge, iconic suspension bridge that crosses a major frontier, how could anyone possibly imagine that it would be a toll crossing?"
Get used to the new world: Toll collection isn't like it was. If you have any reason to expect a toll, and you certainly did here, it is your responsibility to either a) figure out on advance how those tolls work and how to pay them, or b) be diligent about searching for "toll road entrance" warning signs. This is on you: if you don't do it, expect the nasty letter in the mail.
The toll collectors are really trying to help, e.g. by implementing "any car welcome, pay by plate" methods instead of $25 or $50 penalty whammos. The Golden Gate Bridge has signs advising you to pay by Website/plate in within 24hr of crossing.
A few people also scoff the law, on the belief they are untouchable due to being in another state or country. That won't work, and will get you a misdemeanor conviction in CA. But I have to say the US is on the back foot morally, since our diplomats refuse to pay tolls in foreign capital cities.
There are at least three separate signs:
One is a "last exit before toll", shown twice.
Then the exact toll is shown.
If you are entering from the Golden Gate NRA area, there is a toll sign at the intersection.
All of the SF Bay Area bridges are tolled in one direction.
It is normal to process, but disregard, information you don't need. The last 3 bridges you went under, do you remember the posted clearance height or if it even had one? You're not a high-wide truck driver, so I bet you didn't.
Watch "Bull", Season 1 Ep 7, "Didn't see the sign". The defense deliberately covered up a sign near the jury box between sessions and asked the jury to recall the sign. None could. The sign's message was irrelevant to juries, so they simply didn't store it. It works like that for you too, unless you have an eidetic memory.
As you mentioned in a comment of another answer, you already knew the Golden Gate bridge was toll. That meant all 5 toll warning signs were superfluous to you.
You would not, and should not, have stored that information. (this being the crux of the "Bull" episode). That is a complex and busy road even by day, it was unfamiliar and you were driving it at night. The high mental demand required to process all of it is (in aviation) called "pilot workload". That would've been quite high, to say nothing of passenger etc. workloads. In times like that, parts of your mind set aside things you do not need to know.
And I bet you either a) had a rough sense of what the toll would be, certainly if you crossed any other Bay Area bridge, whose tolls are only $1 less. Or b) realized that geographically, an "avoid tolls" route was totally impractical, so you were fully committed. Either of these factors makes the toll amount superfluous information given that workload.
