March/April 2006

Collection Queen

Betty Downing proves Bridge-Tunnel life is a lot more interesting than we think.

By Larry Maddry

NAME: Betty Downing

ON THE JOB: Downing has worked as a toll collector for 17 years. Her current shift is from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. but rotates during the year.

BEFORE THE JOB: Raised in Cheriton on the Eastern Shore, Downing began work as a toll collector in 1988 after her previous job at a shirt factory in Exmore ended with the closing of the factory.

OFF THE JOB: After landing the toll collector job, she got to know Martin Downing, who worked as a policeman on the bridge-tunnel. They eventually married, and she and Lt. Downing now live in Virginia Beach.

Betty Downing’s office is a glass-enclosed room—resembling the front cab of a monorail train—at the south plaza of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. She recently sat in a chair during a typical day at work, punching out computerized receipts and making change, as we made conversation and motorists braked at her window.

“The cold weather isn’t so bad. The hard rains are much worse because the car windshield wipers throw water in your face,” she said.

Downing is one of 16 toll collectors for the bridge-tunnel, the 17.6-mile link connecting Norfolk and Virginia Beach with Virginia’s Eastern Shore. It is the longest bridge-tunnel complex in the world.

The toll fee for a one-way crossing is $12 per car. And motorists aren’t as careful with their money as they should be. “A coupla days ago,” Downing recalled, “a man came through and handed me $10, a $100 bill and a $1 bill. ‘You’ve given me too much money,’ I told him and handed back the $100.”

“Ohmigosh!” he said.

She believes truckers make the most mistakes with their money. “I guess it’s because they drive a long way and get tired,” she said. A trucker recently handed her $100 thinking it was $5.

If gale force winds are sweeping across the bay, she always tells the motorists to keep a tight grip on their money before handing it to her. “But they don’t,” she said. “I’ve seen ’em get out of the car and chase their money down the road. Sometimes they get the bills back. Sometimes they don’t.”

It’s an occupation where you get to know motorists by their faces without knowing what their jobs are or where they live, she noted. And one where you can see almost anything.

“I once had a man pull beside the window with an iguana on his shoulder,” she said. “He acted as though it was a normal thing to be doing. I thought it was a stuffed animal until I saw the iguana’s head move. He told me the iguana’s name was Spike. I’ve never forgotten the name because it seemed a good one for an iguana.”

Throughout her toll collector career, Downing has seen lots of animals in cars and trucks. Monkeys, snakes and plenty of dogs and cats. She’s an animal lover herself and keeps a box of bones near the cash box to give to dogs in the vehicles passing through. One woman who crosses the bay regularly told her that her dog always knows when they are approaching the toll collection booth and gets very excited, anticipating the bone.

I found Downing to be a very personable and diligent person, with both animals and humans. She wore her standard uniform of blue pants and a light blue shirt with the bridge-tunnel logo on the collar the day I spent with her in the booth. After handing out a printed receipt and giving a ticket to each driver for a free soft drink at the restaurant on the bridge-tunnel’s first island, the last words she uttered were always: “Don’t forget to turn on your lights!”

I frequently looked out to see if the vehicles’ taillights were glowing, but only about half of the departing drivers followed her orders.

“That must be discouraging,” I said. She shrugged. “I can warn ’em, but I can’t make ’em,” she said.

Downing’s work hobby is collecting autographs. “You’d be surprised to know how many celebrities come through Hampton Roads,” she said.

And since many use the bridge-tunnel, it works out well. She has collected about 50 celebrity autographs so far—on business cards, receipts or odd slips of paper pulled from glove compartments or written on the back of the free drink ticket.

Recording artist Chubby Checker was the first to give his autograph. The list now includes NASCAR drivers Bill Elliott and Ricky Rudd. Actor Tab Hunter drove across in 1998 and was one of her early additions. Actress Georgia Engel, who was on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, gave an autograph, as did actress Debra Winger, who wrote: “To Betty, Love Ya!”

One she wanted badly but missed was Randy Travis. The driver of the country singer’s vehicle told her he was asleep. But she does have the autographs of country singers Ken Mellons and Clint Black, one from religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and lots from local celebrities including TV news personalities Ed Hughes and Barbara Ciara.

Many of the popular singers come through the south plaza of the bridge-tunnel while going to or returning from the Virginia Beach Amphitheater. And they often are in vans or motor coaches emblazoned with their names, alerting Downing to the possibility of an autograph.

Of course, most of the relationships with motorists are fleeting and of the “How are you?” ... “I’m fine.” ilk. But rudeness is rare in her job, she said. “Most people are nice,” she reflected. “But they get upset sometimes and call you bad names. It’s part of the job.”

One thing Downing never ceases to be amazed at is the lack of geographical knowledge in the heads of the traveling public. “More than once I have had a driver say to me: “Now when I get to the other side, I’ll be in Maryland, right?”

She says motorists pause at her window and say they are headed to Richmond ... or Williamsburg ... or Portsmouth—destinations that will take them hundreds of miles out of their way if they cross the bay.

And many think they are taking the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel to Hampton, she noted. “I just tell them that you can’t get there from here,” she says.