FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                   

Contact:  Amy Davies, Lee County Department of Transportation

               (239) 479-8589

LEE COUNTY MAKING TOLL FACILITY CHANGES TO LINK WITH SUNPASS

FORT MYERS, Fla. (August 18, 2003) - Starting Tuesday (Aug. 19), Lee county will be installing new equipment at the Sanibel Toll Facility to make it compatible, eventually, with Florida's SunPass System and other integrated toll agencies.

The equipment - antennas and readers - will be installed starting at 7 p.m. Tuesday night until completion early Friday morning.

Similar equipment will be added this fall to the Cape Coral and Midpoint Memorial bridges toll plazas.

The goal is to integrate Lee County's system with the statewide SunPass System by early 2004.

The cost of the hardware for the project is about $450,000.

Once complete next year, people using transponders for any of the integrated toll systems in the state will be able to use them on Lee County's toll bridges and vice versa.

With the installing of the new equipment, there may be some bugs to work out, especially with Lee County's complicated discount toll system.  Lee DOT is asking the patience of transponder customers if they experience problems.