The San Luis Pass Bridge

I've caught some very nice fish underneath this bridge. It's good to know I won't need to scrounge up spare change to go over it anymore.

The days of fishing in the console for stray quarters when crossing the San Luis Pass bridge are numbered. Galveston County commissioners voted Monday to phase out the required $2 toll over the bridge, the Galveston County Daily News reported.

The motion passed 5-0 after Commissioner Joe Giusti, who put it on the agenda, reportedly said the toll's purpose of paying for the bridge had been fulfilled years ago. He added that the county could absorb the roughly $500,000 collected yearly from the tolls, more than half of which goes toward staffing the booth.

I always knew that the bridge's construction cost had long been paid off; I somehow assumed that tolls were being collected for the bridge's ongoing maintenance. I had no idea that the majority of those proceeds went to the collection staff itself. That doesn't sound like a particularly efficient use of those revenues, but the cash-only bridge was never a model of efficiency. In fact, it was a bit of a pain.

Notwithstanding the Bolivar ferry—of little use when heading back to Houston or Austin—the San Luis Pass bridge is the only land route off the island besides the I-45 causeway. Linking Galveston Island and Brazoria County, it draws extra attention from time to time when construction around the causeway causes horrific backups, like the one in February that had fuming drivers reportedly waiting up to five hours to get back on the mainland.

It probably should be pointed out that this bridge connects Galveston Island to another island - Follett's Island - and it's still another fifteen miles from this bridge to the State Highway 332 bridge in Surfside that connects Follett's Island to the Brazoria County mainland. This is something to keep in mind when using this bridge for, say, hurricane evacuations. 

Built in the 1960s after Hurricane Carla destroyed the previous one, the bridge may not be long for this world either way, according to the Daily News. In 2023, the Texas Department of Transportation rated it in poor condition, noting its deteriorating beams and cracked concrete.

The county is in the embryonic stages of raising the money necessary for a new bridge. Commissioners in February authorized Galveston County Judge Mark Henry to apply for federal grants that would cover most of the cost, the Daily News reported.

Sounds good to me, as long as the new bridge isn't tolled, and I can still catch nice reds and sheepshead underneath it.