The Public Works Ministry announced that the new, modern toll booths will finally be opened on Las Am?ricas and Seis de Noviembre Highways tomorrow – just in time for the heavy Holy Week traffic. At the same time sharp hikes in the tolls charge will take effect, likely to bring howls of protest from regular users of the highways. The new facilities feature exact change lanes for those having the correct amount in one-peso or five-peso coins. The facilities also have reversible lanes, so that authorities can allot more booths to the direction in which traffic flow is heaviest. A special booth on the extreme right is provided for large vehicles such as semi trucks and large buses.Tolls for "microbuses" and "minibuses" (which, in the view of Dominican authorities, includes mini-vans) will jump 233%, from RD$3 to $RD10, while motorcycles and passenger cars will more than double, from RD$2 to RD$5, and the toll for buses and two-axle trucks will increase 50%, from RD$10 to RD$15. Heavy vehicles of three or more axles will start paying RD$20. As if the impact of the higher tolls wasn’t enough, tolls will now start to be collected in both directions – entering as well as leaving Santo Domingo (previously vehicles only paid tolls when leaving the city). Charging both ways and hiking the tolls is expected to generate huge revenues, a fact not lost on the City of Santo Domingo, is challenging the national government’s Constitutional right to collect such tolls without sharing them with the city and to raise tolls without specific authorization from Congress (since it can be considered a tax rise).
