Tomorrow the toll to cross the Golden Gate Bridge goes to $6 cash, $5 for FasTrak. Don’t get caught short.

The Golden Gate Bridge District, which is not managed by the Calif. Dept. of Transportation or CalTrans, sets its own tolls. The fare to cross CalTrans bridges in the Bay Area, including the Bay Bridge, remains at $4.

If you’re new in town and don’t understand which bridges we mean, here are the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges. Flickr photo by user brothergrimm.

I just drove back to town after a week in the suburbs of Portland. Driving down from 505 to I-80 to the Bay Bridge between 7:00 and 7:30 on a Saturday night, I expected the usual congestion in Berkeley and backup at the bridge toll plaza. Nothing! The drive was smooth as butter, with exactly 1 car in line in front of me at the tolls.

Could be because of Burning Man, or all the local Democrats that went to Denver for the Democratic Convention are taking a long weekend, or maybe that whole staycashun thing is catching on. But the Bay Bridge sure was easy tonight.