Could Florida residents stop paying tolls? Governor Desantis floats the idea.

SANIBEL, Fla. — Paying for a toll like the one at the Sanibel Causeway can add up. But now, there’s talk about changing that.

Fox 4’s Sanibel Community Correspondent Austin Schargorodski went to the island to see how people feel about Governor Ron DeSantis’ idea to get rid of tolls for Florida residents.

Lines of cars rolled through the Sanibel toll plaza Monday. There’s at least a $6 fee, but that could change.

“I’d love to be able to, you know, knock out the tolls and stuff,” DeSantis said.

At a Florida Cabinet meeting in December, Gov. DeSantis suggested a plan that would eliminate tolls for permanent Florida residents.

The Florida Channel

“You could charge the visitors and they could probably support it all and give our Florida residents a break. I think that would be really good,” DeSantis said.

People Schargorodski spoke with on the Sanibel Causeway agreed.

“I’m all for it. That sounds great,” one driver said.

“I like the idea of being able to explore the state without having to pay the extra fees,” another added.

“If the government can support it and wants to give citizens a freebie for a while, that sounds good,” another person said.

But there’s a lot of money tied to tolls. The state said in a report that it brought in nearly $1.31 billion in toll revenue during fiscal year 2025. In Lee County alone, tolls generated about $52 million in 2024, according to a financial report.

On Sanibel, the city said it receives about 21 percent of the revenue from the Sanibel toll plaza, usually between $1 million and $1.5 million a year.

“If that money were to be decreased, then we would have to offset that somehow in order to keep that same level of service for maintenance and repairs, any improvement that we see the need for on Sanibel,” said Sanibel spokesperson, Eric Jackson.

Schargorodski reached out to FDOT to ask whether visitors could end up paying more to cover any lost toll revenue from the change, but had not heard back.

For now, DeSantis has asked the state’s financial director to look into the idea.