It took me half a fucking hour to cross the I-90 bridge westbound this morning, between the Island Crest onramp and the Rainier Avenue exit. Fuck.

Here's the deal. I live in southeast Seattle, but my baby mama lives on Mercer Island, where our daughter goes to high school. Which means I cross the I-90 bridge more days than not, either dropping my daughter off or picking her up, or both. On days like today, I'll make two round-trip crossings, both of them during rush hour.

Say what you will, but this arrangement is by circumstance, not choice. Real life isn't always convenient... and for me, it just got a helluva lot less so with the start of 520 tolling.

The alternative—tolling I-90 so that the traffic evens out between the two bridges—isn't exactly an attractive option for me either. At $3.50 each way, my two roundtrip rush hour crossings would cost me an extra $14.00 a day. Even as a part-time parent, I'd be looking at paying more a year in I-90 tolls than my car is actually worth.

And yes, I suppose my daughter could take transit, but we're talking two bus transfers, and at least an hour commute. It's hard enough getting a teenager out of bed at 6:30 AM, let alone out the door.

The only other option—spending less time with my daughter—isn't one.

Yeah, I know: boo-hoo, world's smallest violin, and all that. But for all the commuters thrilled to pay the 520 toll for the privilege of zipping across the lake at 65 mph, there are many more people like me for whom the new normal amounts to a huge new expense and/or inconvenience. That said, this is the new normal, and as expensive/irritating as it is for me, it doesn't shake my support for regional tolling as both a funding mechanism, and a means of (gasp) "social engineering."

But I don't have to like it.