The Bob Sikes Toll Booth Comes Down This Fall. It Hasn't Taken Cash Since 2020.

"The toll booth has always been an eyesore, and it's also been a pain in the rear on the big weekends as far as traffic and people not knowing, 'Do I stop?' or 'Do I go?'" That's how Rob Gleam, managing partner at Bamboo Willies, described the plaza at the foot of the Bob Sikes Bridge to WEAR-TV in September.

His question has had the same answer for years: keep going. Escambia County stopped collecting cash at the plaza on March 20, 2020. Since then the booth has been a structure drivers slow down for, even though nobody inside takes payment. The county now plans to demolish it starting in October. The building goes away, but the toll doesn't. That means the part that affects anyone who crosses the bridge every week isn't the demolition. It's how billing works once the gantry goes live, how the annual pass fits into that system, and what a county traffic study recommends for the island entrance after that.

A project that's already a season late

The Pensacola Beach Gateway Improvements Project replaces the plaza with a new gateway structure and tolling system, built around a toll gantry, that the county says will move vehicles on and off the island more efficiently. The construction contract totals $6,559,570.56. It's paid for with Local Option Sales Tax, Tourist Development Tax and Bob Sikes toll revenue, according to the Santa Rosa Island Authority. The county's project page lists The Green-Simmons Company as contractor and Mott MacDonald for construction engineering and inspection.

The early notices had the work starting in January 2026 and finishing by summer. In the county's milestone table, the notice to proceed is dated Dec. 1, 2025, and the project hit 25% complete on April 1, 2026. Final completion is now projected for November 2026. That table was last updated Aug. 21.

The order of work makes sense for an island where summer traffic sets the schedule. "Now that the summer season is over," WEAR reported, crews would start tearing down the plaza in October and expected to substantially finish demolition by the end of the month. District 4 Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger said the gantry and plate-reading equipment come next, with "the end of fall" as the target. As of Oct. 12, we haven't found a county notice or news report from after Sept. 10 confirming that demolition has started. Until one appears, the October timeline is a plan.

The fall calendar, weekday by weekday

The county's Sept. 10 construction notice sets the rules for the drive in through the end of October. Northbound and southbound lanes on Pensacola Beach Boulevard at the plaza have closures and shifts 24 hours a day, Monday through Friday. The shifts come down by 5 p.m. every Friday and go back up by 7 a.m. Monday, so Saturdays and Sundays are clear. The work is expected to wrap up Friday, Oct. 30, "weather and construction coordination permitting," and the county says it will issue another notice if work runs late.

That makes the weekday events this fall the ones that run into the work zone. Here's how the island calendar from Visit Pensacola Beach lines up with the lane-shift window:

Beach-O-Ween is the tightest fit. Its first hour falls before the Friday 5 p.m. deadline for clearing the shifts. Taste of the Beach runs Oct. 29 through Nov. 1, so it starts in the work zone's final week and ends after the scheduled finish. If the county's forecast holds, the December events fall after the lane work is done. That includes the Lighted Boat Parade on Friday, Dec. 4 at 6:30 p.m. and the Surfing Santa Beach Parade on Sunday, Dec. 6 at 2 p.m. The gantry equipment installation could still be underway then, since the county projects final completion in November.

What a gantry bills, and how

The county currently lists a $1 toll for vehicles headed to Pensacola Beach on the Bob Sikes Bridge. WEAR noted that the gantry will carry toll-by-plate equipment, CCTV cameras and fiber-optic communications, and that access fees aren't going away.

According to Escambia County's Pensacola Beach page, you can pay in these ways:

• Transponders: SunPass, E-Pass, NC Quick Pass, Peach Pass and E-ZPass
• Tolling apps that work with those systems
• The Pensacola Beach Annual Pass, which is tied to a SunPass account
• SunPass toll-by-plate: $1 per trip, plus a $2.50 administrative charge once per monthly billing cycle, however many trips you make
• Cash and coins: not accepted

Because the toll-by-plate fee is charged once a month, it costs proportionally the most for the occasional visitor. A guest who crosses once in a month pays $3.50 that month. Someone who crosses 20 times in a month pays $22.50, and the $2.50 fee is a small share of that. Weekend visitors without a transponder already got plate bills before this project, and the gantry keeps that process the same.

The pass that costs $5

For people who live on the island, the annual pass program is the bigger number. The county posts three rates. A public annual pass is $20 a year, and a commercial pass is $70 a year for any vehicle with commercial markings or advertising, magnetic and rooftop signs included. Homestead residents pay $5 per pass and can have up to two. To count as a homestead resident under the program, you must live at a primary residence on Pensacola Beach at least 50% of the year. County customer service checks the homestead exemption through the Escambia County Tax Office.

At today's $1 toll, a $5 pass breaks even on the fifth crossing, and every trip after that is a savings. Someone who goes over the bridge for groceries or work a few times a week passes that point in the first two weeks. The county page labels these prices "Effective May 1, 2017," and they're still posted as current, so the homestead rate has held for nearly a decade.

The setup works in this order. You need a SunPass transponder bought and activated first. The pass covers two-axle noncommercial vehicles. It may take two to four hours after the transponder is set up before you can buy the pass. You can enroll online or by phone at 850-916-5415 or 850-916-5421. The county page also says, in a line written before the gantry, that the pass is "only valid for the Bob Sikes Bridge toll plaza." The county materials we reviewed don't explain how passes move over to the new gantry. That's a reasonable thing to ask customer service before the plaza comes down, especially if a pass is close to renewal.

The decision that comes after the demolition

Taking down the booth is the end of one project. Hofberger told WEAR that the county is also running a traffic management study of the former toll area through the end of November, and that the study team "will come back to us with recommendations." She named three questions it covers:

1. How traffic on the beach can flow better
2. How to make the entrance safer for people biking and walking without putting them next to traffic
3. Whether a parking garage belongs in the picture

None of the reporting we found names a consultant, a cost, a garage site or a date for the recommendations to reach the County Commission. The timing still matters, though. The study is scheduled to end in November, the same month the gantry project is projected to finish. That means the county will be looking at its recommendations right as the old plaza's footprint is cleared.

The fishing pier next to the bridge is on a slower schedule. Escambia County opened bids for the Bob Sikes Fishing Pier South on July 27, 2026. The bids were canceled, and the county's procurement portal says the project "will be re-solicited with a revised scope and pricing table." So while the plaza is scheduled to come down this fall, no construction contract has been awarded for the pier yet.

Have questions about how the Gateway project or the traffic study could affect a Pensacola Beach property you own or are thinking about? The team at aDoor Real Estate (Avenue Realty) keeps up with island projects as county updates come out and is happy to talk them through with you. Schedule a Free Home Consultation, and we'll share what we know about the entrance, the pass program and the next round of county decisions.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.