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Toll-road commuters will pay at least 20 cents more in each direction on the Powhite Parkway and Downtown Expressway starting in September under the first toll increase in a decade.

The Richmond Metropolitan Authority voted yesterday to raise the expressway system's 50-cent tolls to 70 cents and to do away with discounts for E-ZPass holders. Some lesser tolls in the 45-mile system also are likely to jump under a proposal the RMA will consider next month.

RMA officials say the increase will pay for more than $80 million in projected maintenance and construction costs during the next decade, including bridge repairs and high-speed, barrier-free toll lanes on the westbound Downtown Expressway. Such high-speed toll lanes are to debut on the Powhite Parkway this summer.

RMA officials also say the authority on July 1 will have to start picking up the estimated $500,000 annual cost for routine maintenance -- snow removal, pothole repair and grass cutting -- that the Virginia Department of Transportation historically has provided.

VDOT has no plans to increase tolls on Chesterfield County's Powhite Extension, which it owns and manages, a VDOT spokeswoman said. The extension starts at Jahnke Road and ends at Old Hundred Road.

The RMA's board voted 6-5 for its increases, with some board members saying they wanted a lesser increase of 65 cents or none at all. The authority's staff had recommended rates of 75 cents for cash customers, partly because it would require motorists using as few as three coins, and 70 cents for E-ZPass users.

Charles Richard White, a board member from Chesterfield, said he opposed an increase because state law provides that the expressway system will be turned over to Richmond officials once the RMA pays off the approximate $123 million in outstanding debt used to build the roads.

He noted that about 60 percent of the expressway system's traffic consists of Chesterfield residents, adding, "There is nothing to prevent the city from setting the toll rate as it chooses" once it owns the system, he said.

RMA officials say the city can continue collecting tolls because the authority also owes the city approximately $56 million more for the seed money, plus interest, that the city has put into projects, and because the roads will require continued maintenance.

Charles Breckenridge Arrington Jr., an RMA board member from Richmond, said the toll system simply amounts to a user fee. "The people who pay the tolls are the people who use the roads," he said.

Reaction to the increase was varied.

The GRTC Transit System, which runs two commuter express bus routes into western Chesterfield that use the Downtown Expressway and Powhite Parkway, said its rates will be unaffected and that the toll increase could boost ridership.

"It's definitely going to increase the cost of going by car. [The price of tolls] definitely enters into people's equation when they decide how to commute," GRTC Chief Executive Officer John M. Lewis Jr. said.

The combination of a 40 percent increase in tolls and rising gasoline prices won't sit well with Chesterfield commuters, said Del. Samuel A. Nixon Jr., R-Chesterfield.

"I imagine the reaction is going to be a little more adding insult to injury," he said.

Nixon said he expects the toll increase to fuel discussion of a possible restructuring of the RMA board. Last month, the General Assembly carried over a bill proposed by Nixon that would have stripped three of Richmond's six RMA board seats, giving an additional one each to Chesterfield and Henrico and granting Hanover County its first spot on the board.

Contact Kiran Krishnamurthy at (804) 649-6810 or kkrishnamurthy@timesdispatch.com.

Staff writer Will Jones contributed to this report.