{"id":87822,"date":"2025-12-18T10:25:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T10:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/87822\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T10:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T10:25:08","slug":"knock-out-the-tolls-desantis-considers-ending-tolls-for-florida-drivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/87822\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Knock out the tolls:\u2019 DeSantis considers ending tolls for Florida drivers"},"content":{"rendered":"

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2013 Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday brought up an idea during his latest Cabinet meeting<\/a>: eliminating tolls for residents of the Sunshine State.<\/p>\n

While discussing the state\u2019s accelerated debt program<\/a>, which uses state funding surpluses to more quickly pay down the state\u2019s debt, DeSantis commented on the state\u2019s toll costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is some other debt for the state, like the Turnpike and stuff, which is user-supported, right? Because people pay tolls,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I was just thinking: we\u2019re knocking out taxpayer-supported debt. And I know that… other people kind of have purview over this, but I\u2019d love to be able to knock out the tolls and stuff people are paying.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor suggested that out-of-state visitors could foot more of the bill, giving Florida residents a \u201cbreak.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow long do we keep the tolls?\u201d DeSantis asked. \u201cThese tolls were – they\u2019ve been here since I can remember. As a kid, they had tolls on the Turnpike. At what point is this all going to be paid off?\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to DeSantis\u2019 suggestion, Florida Director of Bond Finance Ben Watkins said his office would \u201ctake a look at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

[BELOW: News 6 takes a deep dive on Florida\u2019s toll roads]<\/p>\n

There are around 700 miles of toll roads in Florida, with researchers saying that Orange County has the most<\/a>, at over 150 miles.<\/p>\n

A report by Florida\u2019s Turnpike System<\/a> last year shows that toll revenues reached around $1.3 billion in FY2024, with upkeep expenses reaching a mere $275 million by comparison.<\/p>\n

However, the outstanding bonded debt during this time was still over $3.2 billion \u2014 nearly one-third of the overall debt limit.<\/p>\n

[BELOW: $2.5B toll road in Poinciana closer to becoming reality]<\/p>\n

DeSantis has taken action on state toll roads several times during his tenure as governor, including suspending tolls during major storms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The governor has also previously implemented a toll relief program<\/a> that gave Florida drivers a half refund on their monthly toll fees if they passed through at least 35 tolls a month.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the 2023 program delivered $500 million in savings to over 1.2 million commuters, which comes out to about $400 saved per person, according to DeSantis\u2019 website.<\/a><\/p>\n

[BELOW: News 6 looks at the 2024 toll relief program in Florida]<\/p>\n

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Copyright 2025 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2013 Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday brought up an idea during his latest Cabinet meeting:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,2159,1335,99,412,232,8527,729],"class_list":{"0":"post-87822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news","11":"tag-money","12":"tag-orange-county","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-ron-desantis","15":"tag-tallahassee","16":"tag-taxes","17":"tag-traffic"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}