Md. Charges E-Z Pass Fee; Many Cancel

Maryland Transportation Authority officials say thousands of E-ZPass users have closed their accounts as the state started charging a monthly fee for the service.

Authority statistics show 19,000 inquiries about closing accounts were received in July and 4,990 accounts were closed that month. On average, authority spokeswoman Teri Moss says, about 1,000 accounts are closed each month.

The new $1.50-per-month fee went into effect on July 1.

Moss says the number of dropped accounts is a small fraction of the nearly 560,000 accounts and has been offset somewhat by the addition of about 2,800 new accounts in July.

Moss says the state still has some 70,000 accounts that haven't been used in the past year.