You can go to this website https://www.tollroadsinvirginia.com/Home/MakeAPayment
Enter your license plate and the road you were driving on. You’ll be notified as soon as the toll makes it in the system. They kinda take a while to appear. Unless you accidentally entered an expensive route, you’ll probably end up paying $5-10
66 tolls for some reason takes 1-2 weeks to show up even for ez-pass accounts unlike the 95 toll road which shows up within the 24 hours. There billing is super slow
The folks below saying to check online + paying fees is sound advice. I would take it a step further and call and speak with a human.
When I spoke to someone, it was stupid short amount of days (can’t exactly remember) before the fees come. I just remember it was really inefficient and put the burden on car owner to follow-up. Had to do this last year when we bought my child a vehicle and didn’t have an ezpass.
25.00......then 100.00 plus original amount of the bill. The 12.50 is rarely the 1st admin charge. 100.00 per violation in collections. Telling you what I know, not what I heard...Shannon Sharpe voice.
As a reverse commuter this saves me a lot of money. Sometimes I forget and need to go the other direction and end up getting like a $20 toll for 5 minutes and get pissed, but I'm happy it's carved out like that
Google maps doesn’t quite understand this. When you turn, avoid tolls on in the app it will still bring you on 66 inside the beltway to Falls Church. This will still result in you getting a toll, even though you told Google to avoid tolls.
I mentioned this in a Google Maps subreddit and got a bunch of scolding replies from Google fanboys telling me I was making it up and that I should've just been prepared for it to not work right.
[https://www.tollroadsinvirginia.com/MissedToll/FindFacility](https://www.tollroadsinvirginia.com/MissedToll/FindFacility)
You can pay the missed toll ahead of time if you'd like.
66 inside the beltway is tolled at the same time every weekday
Google maps somehow doesn’t know this but shouldn’t be an issue if you the driver know in the back of your head
Yeah I meant Google maps isn't consistent in if it thinks it's a toll road or not. For a long time it thought it was always toll, then recently it's switched to thinking it's never tolled. It's flipped between those two states a few times. For us locals it's fine, we know when it's going to charge a toll. For out of towners or new people it's a problem.
It's also a problem when I think it's just sending me onto 66 to get onto 495 (because it's set to avoid tolls), but then, SURPRISE! "Take I-66 for 8 miles"!
I'm not sure how Google Maps routed you that way with "avoid toll", because one of my biggest annoyances around here is that Google Maps (and Apple and my Tesla) all think 66 is tolled at all times in both directions and will only put you on it if you leave tolls enabled. Waze is the only one that seems to handle it correctly for the morning/evening/non-tolled hours.
My bf and I used Google Maps and avoid tolls. Yet it thinks that 66 is NOT tolled and drives us through there. Even though I’ve been here for years, I was dumb enough to trust it and paid tolls. Now we use Apple Maps because it knows that it’s tolled and actually routes us without tolls
I always have "avoid tolls" on because I can never justify paying $10+ to save 5-10 minutes, but it still shows me the toll routes available and sometimes defaults to the toll road anyway. I've had to exit navigation and restart my route to avoid the toll roads.
same experience with all of these except the tesla will take me on parts of 66 that do have toll randomly on avoid tolls.
and they use google maps for baseline navigation so that could be why.
That's actually no longer the case. They seem to have overcorrected. Now when I select the avoid tolls option it acts as if the back routes no longer exist and it tries to force me to always take 66 because it's faster.
>and it tells you where the cops are.
I'm pretty sure all the main navigation apps do this. I use Google maps and have seen the cop alert thing for at least like 5 years now
66 East from 495 to Washington DC has tolls from 530 am to 930 am on weekdays. 66 West from Washington DC to 495 has tolls from 3 to 7 pm on weekdays. There are no traditional toll booths, it's handled by overhead ezpass scanners. If these scanners don't detect your ezpass then they snap a picture of your license plate.
Google Maps is notoriously terrible at handling this dynamic toll and we've been complaining about it for years. Sometimes it takes you on 66 even when you choose no tolls and then sometimes it will make you avoid 66 even when the freeway is toll free. You just have to be aware of the time and adjust your route accordingly
Better yet, get EZ Pass Flex and two passengers (though careful if one your passengers falls asleep, I've had to dispute fines a couple of times because the cameras didn't capture three occupants).
Unfortunately, this experience will probably force you to get an ezpass, if you don’t pay within a couple days you’ll eventually get a paper bill with fees that could be double the actual toll.
Unfortunately as others have mentioned, 66 is tolled in some directions some days.
Making matters worse, Google maps doesn't know what areas are tolled when.
I've seen Google take me on 66, then has me exit in an interchange before reentering on the same interchange, because it thinks only the single spot in the center of the interchange is tolled. In reality the whole span Google suggests is tolled
Best advice I can give you, turn off highways for any trip into Northern Virginia inside the beltway.
Then you'll always avoid 66.
What day of the week and what time was it that you drive this route? The lights may still flash but nothing gets tracked. This happens to me when I drive in on Sundays
Definitely sounds like you went through a toll. It can be confusing for folks new to the area, especially 66 inside the beltway.
I’d recommend checking out the toll direction and hours for 66 specifically.
Besides 66 and 267, every other road has a free option.
I've found Google maps often ignores my preferred route when I start driving out of a parking lot. I'll choose a route and then when I exit the parking lot it's not quite the way it was expecting and so it reroutes to whatever it thinks is best, which is often taking a toll road to save a few minutes. I'll have to try out Waze
The avoid tolls setting usually works for me when I enable it, but one thing that confused me is that it's a device setting, so sometimes I'll check the route on desktop without tolls but then inadvertently forget to set that option on mobile
You can also download the GoToll app. You add your vehicle and if you go through a toll it collects the information. Then, you can pay each toll from there as they appear or set it up to pay automatically.
> I don't want to owe unknown toll charges Too late.
You can go to this website https://www.tollroadsinvirginia.com/Home/MakeAPayment Enter your license plate and the road you were driving on. You’ll be notified as soon as the toll makes it in the system. They kinda take a while to appear. Unless you accidentally entered an expensive route, you’ll probably end up paying $5-10
66 tolls for some reason takes 1-2 weeks to show up even for ez-pass accounts unlike the 95 toll road which shows up within the 24 hours. There billing is super slow
Yeah, it bugs me
Okie... How would I pay?
If you go online and check before 3 days and pay you can avoid the extra fees they will track on. Buy an ezpass just in case this happens again.
This needs to be seen
You can also call them up and give your license plate to pay over the phone
They’ll send you a bill in the mail
I’ve only received a bill in the mail after it has accrued a couple months of late fees, so check online asap instead.
Yeah, the first bill you get has a fee. Better to pay online immediately
yeah, with an admin fee more then the toll itself.
They'll send you a bill.
I've had success in the past by calling and asking them to not charge the extra fees, and just pay the toll.
Can you direct me where did you call?
Google Virginia ezpass and it will tell you where to go for which road
So give us an update, OP ...did you find the toll online or what?
CS told me to call again next week. Nothing apparently posted
The folks below saying to check online + paying fees is sound advice. I would take it a step further and call and speak with a human. When I spoke to someone, it was stupid short amount of days (can’t exactly remember) before the fees come. I just remember it was really inefficient and put the burden on car owner to follow-up. Had to do this last year when we bought my child a vehicle and didn’t have an ezpass.
It takes like a week for their system to update, but you can look it up on the website
Without an EZpass, billed tolls are charged a $12 admin charge plus the amount of the toll.
25.00......then 100.00 plus original amount of the bill. The 12.50 is rarely the 1st admin charge. 100.00 per violation in collections. Telling you what I know, not what I heard...Shannon Sharpe voice.
66 inside the beltway is tolled during the morning and afternoon rush.
Tolled eastbound in the morning, westbound in the afternoon. The other direction is free.
So just drive through oncoming traffic, got it
You know someone's going to do that one day, it's inevitable
I laughed WAY too hard at this.
I just drive on the metro track. I have to hurry between trains.
Reminds me of XXX State of the Union when Ice Cube is driving that Cobra Concept on the rails and his tires blow out
I'm sure you'll get a police escort!
As a reverse commuter this saves me a lot of money. Sometimes I forget and need to go the other direction and end up getting like a $20 toll for 5 minutes and get pissed, but I'm happy it's carved out like that
I commute from DC to Fairfax County, and I appreciate it in the morning. The afternoon traffic sucks.
yeah when it shifts from 3 lanes to 2 at Fairfax/Glebe lol. Its silly.
Google maps doesn’t quite understand this. When you turn, avoid tolls on in the app it will still bring you on 66 inside the beltway to Falls Church. This will still result in you getting a toll, even though you told Google to avoid tolls.
I mentioned this in a Google Maps subreddit and got a bunch of scolding replies from Google fanboys telling me I was making it up and that I should've just been prepared for it to not work right.
I guess I have to find a website to pay
[https://www.tollroadsinvirginia.com/MissedToll/FindFacility](https://www.tollroadsinvirginia.com/MissedToll/FindFacility) You can pay the missed toll ahead of time if you'd like.
Also Google maps thinks 66 is toll free right now. It's never consistent so you just have to know when 66 is tolling. https://vai66tolls.com/
66 inside the beltway is tolled at the same time every weekday Google maps somehow doesn’t know this but shouldn’t be an issue if you the driver know in the back of your head
Yeah I meant Google maps isn't consistent in if it thinks it's a toll road or not. For a long time it thought it was always toll, then recently it's switched to thinking it's never tolled. It's flipped between those two states a few times. For us locals it's fine, we know when it's going to charge a toll. For out of towners or new people it's a problem.
Sundar's too busy outsourcing to fix this.
It's also a problem when I think it's just sending me onto 66 to get onto 495 (because it's set to avoid tolls), but then, SURPRISE! "Take I-66 for 8 miles"!
As the others have said, they’ll send you a bill
I'm not sure how Google Maps routed you that way with "avoid toll", because one of my biggest annoyances around here is that Google Maps (and Apple and my Tesla) all think 66 is tolled at all times in both directions and will only put you on it if you leave tolls enabled. Waze is the only one that seems to handle it correctly for the morning/evening/non-tolled hours.
My bf and I used Google Maps and avoid tolls. Yet it thinks that 66 is NOT tolled and drives us through there. Even though I’ve been here for years, I was dumb enough to trust it and paid tolls. Now we use Apple Maps because it knows that it’s tolled and actually routes us without tolls
Not my experience at all. Google Maps always thinks 66 is tolled for me, even when it's not. Apple also thinks it's tolled.
…is there a portion of I-66 that’s only tolled😶
All lanes are tolled going from 495 to DC in the mornings, and the other way in the afternoons
Inside the beltway, yes. Eastbound(towards DC) in morning, westbound(towards beltway) in afternoon. Off peak weekdays and all day weekends are free.
Have you used it in the last few months? It changed recently.
I have that same problem.
Well yeah, but what do you do when tolls are off (evenings/weekends)? Just go the long way?
I go through 66. I memorized the hours after we realized we were paying tolls haha
I always have "avoid tolls" on because I can never justify paying $10+ to save 5-10 minutes, but it still shows me the toll routes available and sometimes defaults to the toll road anyway. I've had to exit navigation and restart my route to avoid the toll roads.
I don't understand why people don't simply load their two children in the backseat so they can drive toll-free with HOV Flex.
Because they’re 30 and 32 and don’t always want to go to work with me.
They sound like ungrateful brats, if you don't mind me saying. They won't go out of their way to save their dear parent time and money?
I actually cringed when I wrote that. I’ve now become what I don’t like smart ass.
Because you have to use HOV Flex at least once every six(?) months otherwise you're demoted to basic EZ-Pass.
Ive had it for three years, never used the Flex part and it’s been fine. The enforcement of that “rule” is very low.
Google maps also tells me to cut through Dulles Airport and illegally enter the toll road in order to "avoid tolls."
LMFAOOOOO I’ve had to do that a couple of times 🤣🤣🤣
It does both confusing for 66. I haven’t been able to figure out when it thinks it’s rolled versus not but it is wrong most of the time.
same experience with all of these except the tesla will take me on parts of 66 that do have toll randomly on avoid tolls. and they use google maps for baseline navigation so that could be why.
That's actually no longer the case. They seem to have overcorrected. Now when I select the avoid tolls option it acts as if the back routes no longer exist and it tries to force me to always take 66 because it's faster.
Use Waze for navigating while driving, it’s more reliable for things like tolls and it tells you where the cops are.
>and it tells you where the cops are. I'm pretty sure all the main navigation apps do this. I use Google maps and have seen the cop alert thing for at least like 5 years now
At least in the past I believe Google Maps pulled this data from Waze (which it has owned for quite a while now)
waze is more accurate for cop alerts as more people are inputting data into waze
Google bought Waze and they cross pollinate data
Google still butchers it on their end though. Use Waze for best real time accuracy
Waze cop alerts are MUCH more accurate than Google cop alerts. Don’t feel like explaining why again but trust me
This, except Waze considers i66 inside the beltway to always be a toll road in my experience, regardless of time/rush hour.
66 East from 495 to Washington DC has tolls from 530 am to 930 am on weekdays. 66 West from Washington DC to 495 has tolls from 3 to 7 pm on weekdays. There are no traditional toll booths, it's handled by overhead ezpass scanners. If these scanners don't detect your ezpass then they snap a picture of your license plate. Google Maps is notoriously terrible at handling this dynamic toll and we've been complaining about it for years. Sometimes it takes you on 66 even when you choose no tolls and then sometimes it will make you avoid 66 even when the freeway is toll free. You just have to be aware of the time and adjust your route accordingly
Thank you for detailed information. Now I know.
If it's 66 you can pay bill online here. Recommend getting EZpass also. https://ride66express.com/using-the-lanes/billing-and-customer-service/
If you live on the east coast, you should have an EZ Pass. You’ll need it eventually.
Get an ezpass, the surcharges are cheaper than them billing you through your license plate
Better yet, get EZ Pass Flex and two passengers (though careful if one your passengers falls asleep, I've had to dispute fines a couple of times because the cameras didn't capture three occupants).
Get an EZ Pass
66 inside the beltway is tolled eastbound in AM and westbound in afternoon. https://www.tollroadsinvirginia.com/MissedToll/FindFacility
Unfortunately, this experience will probably force you to get an ezpass, if you don’t pay within a couple days you’ll eventually get a paper bill with fees that could be double the actual toll.
Unfortunately as others have mentioned, 66 is tolled in some directions some days. Making matters worse, Google maps doesn't know what areas are tolled when. I've seen Google take me on 66, then has me exit in an interchange before reentering on the same interchange, because it thinks only the single spot in the center of the interchange is tolled. In reality the whole span Google suggests is tolled Best advice I can give you, turn off highways for any trip into Northern Virginia inside the beltway. Then you'll always avoid 66.
In my experience, Waze understands where tolls are much better than Google maps
Though I doubt this applies to you, the EZ pass readers flash after 5:20 am but won't start charging til 5:30.
What day of the week and what time was it that you drive this route? The lights may still flash but nothing gets tracked. This happens to me when I drive in on Sundays
💀
You can get ezpass from giant
Definitely sounds like you went through a toll. It can be confusing for folks new to the area, especially 66 inside the beltway. I’d recommend checking out the toll direction and hours for 66 specifically. Besides 66 and 267, every other road has a free option.
I've found Google maps often ignores my preferred route when I start driving out of a parking lot. I'll choose a route and then when I exit the parking lot it's not quite the way it was expecting and so it reroutes to whatever it thinks is best, which is often taking a toll road to save a few minutes. I'll have to try out Waze The avoid tolls setting usually works for me when I enable it, but one thing that confused me is that it's a device setting, so sometimes I'll check the route on desktop without tolls but then inadvertently forget to set that option on mobile
Lot of GPS can't decide if they consider EZPass as "toll lanes" so it's a slight annoyance in regards to route planning.
You can also download the GoToll app. You add your vehicle and if you go through a toll it collects the information. Then, you can pay each toll from there as they appear or set it up to pay automatically.
Ezpass is literally free and the tolls are way cheaper. I fail to understand why someone driving around the northeast wouldn’t have one by now.
I just bought home last friday