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Contractor won’t be fined for delays on West Side

The Interstate 520 floating bridge on Lake Washington is one of the bridges set to get a toll system. (Associated Press)
The Interstate 520 floating bridge on Lake Washington is one of the bridges set to get a toll system. (Associated Press)

TACOMA – A contractor that has failed to meet deadlines as it sets up tolling systems on the Interstate 520 and Tacoma Narrows bridges will avoid paying millions of dollars in fines because state officials say they do not want to further delay installing the projects.

A contract Washington entered with the Electronic Transaction Consultants Corps allows the state to fine the Texas-based company for delays that have amounted to $12 million. But the penalties could drive the contractor out of business and the state does not want to start over, officials told the Tacoma News Tribune.

“Our goal is to get a system up and running,” state toll director Craig Stone told the newspaper in a story published Sunday. “We’ve got to make sure this vendor is viable and able to get in place the equipment and software needed, and to get up and running.”

For the 520 project, after missing the March deadline, the state could have fined ETCC $300,000 a day. The state could have billed the contractor $10,000 a day for the Tacoma system.

The newspaper reports that the state instead has only subtracted a few hundred thousand dollars from its payments to the company.

Still, Stone said they will hold the ETCC accountable.

The state signed the five-year, $23 million contract with ETCC in 2009. Tolling on 520 has been delayed until December while the system is straightened out. The pay-by-mail system for the Tacoma Narrows is also delayed until December. That delay led to the state to forgive thousands of fines.

ETCC declined to comment.

Washington is not the only place where the company has run into trouble. Louisiana transportation officials sued the company over failure to complete work on a computer system, and there’s a dispute in Florida over late work.

“If everybody hits them with a million dollars a month in damages, how long can they survive?” said J.J. Eden, a former North Carolina toll official who leads an expert panel reviewing Washington’s toll system. “Even if you were to end up owning the company, what does that give you? You start over.”