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Price • Drivers who buy transponders that allow them to pay their way into Utah freeway express lanes while driving solo will soon be subject to a minimum monthly fee.

The Utah Transportation Commission approved a monthly $2.85 fee Friday while meeting in Price, noting the contractor that collects electronic tolls charges the state that amount per account for the service.

State highway officials say a huge 45 percent of the 14,000 account owners either do not use transponders or use them rarely. That leaves the state on the hook to pay $18,800 a month, or about $225,000, in fees for those inactive accounts.

The commission approved a change so that all accounts will be charged the minimum fee beginning July 1.

Jason Davis, chief of operations for the Utah Department of Transportation, said the fee could prod some transponder owners to use them more often because "you've already bought it, so you should utilize it." Tolls are charged to driver-only cars that want to use carpool lanes.

Davis also expects that many will simply discontinue their accounts to avoid the fee. UDOT plans to allow transponder owners to turn them in for a refund of their purchase price. UDOT charges $8.75 for a transponder, and requires a minimum deposit of $25 to open an account.

UDOT says 252 transponder owners actually have never used them.

Why? "Maybe it's the nature of being prepared," Davis said earlier. "They are prepared for the eventuality of driving in the toll lane, but they never have really needed to do it."

The issue had been an item of controversy for the transportation commission, which usually agrees unanimously on almost everything.

But last month, the commission split on whether to impose the fee — and asked UDOT to survey account holders about the proposal.

Commissioner Gayle McKeachnie, a former Utah lieutenant governor, at the time questioned whether UDOT really needs the money or wants to go after it "just because it's sitting there and you can put it in your pocket."

McKeachnie, who lives in Vernal, said the proposal could hurt people in rural areas who own transponders for occasional trips to the Wasatch Front.

But Commissioner Wayne Barlow questioned whether taxpayers in general should subsidize transponder owners who rarely use them.

Davis said Friday that an email survey of account owners found that 54 percent said transponder users should be responsible for the $2.85 a month fee, 32 percent wanted taxpayers to cover it and 14 percent were neutral.

Commissioner Kent Millington took note of the response of those opposing the fee. "Easy for them to say — 'I want a transponder and let somebody else pay for it,' " he said.

UDOT Executive Director Carlos Braceras said his agency's goal is for the toll program to pay for itself without a subsidy, and the new fee is a key to that.

Express lanes — which are free to vehicles carrying at least two people, or motorcycles ­— now stretch 62 miles along Interstate 15 on the Wasatch Front, and will soon be 72 miles when additions in Davis County are completed. UDOT says it is the longest continuous stretch of high-occupancy vehicle lanes in America.

Express lanes carry 54 percent more people than regular lanes, because of their use by carpools and because of higher average speeds that allow them to carry more cars.