Tolls on the Golden Gate Bridge would rise and fall depending on the amount of traffic congestion, under a proposal likely to be considered next month by the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District.

The move to adopt so-called congestion-based tolls is an effort to save $158 million in federal transportation funding. That money is needed in part to help rebuild Doyle Drive, the structurally unstable approach to the landmark bridge.

The idea of charging variable tolls, which would rise at times of heavy congestion and drop when there is less traffic, emerged from talks between North Bay politicians and regional transportation officials over the proposal to charge congestion-based tolls on Doyle Drive.

Federal transportation officials last summer offered the Bay Area $158 million - including $58 million toward the $1.1 billion Doyle Drive project - but they will give the money only if congestion-based tolls are imposed. The hitch is designed to help the federal government examine whether such tolls are successful.

North Bay officials oppose a Doyle Drive toll, which they call a "Marin commuter tax," and the opposition has threatened the project. To implement the Doyle Drive toll, San Francisco officials need legislation passed in Sacramento by March 31, but legislators have shied away because of the controversy.

In lieu of the Doyle Drive charge, some Golden Gate officials have suggested adding congestion-based pricing to their toll structure, with the proceeds used to help fund the district's bus and ferry operations. The bridge district is already considering a $1 toll increase to $6.

If the bridge arrangement is accepted - and the Federal Transportation Administration has said it might be - it would save the $158 million grant, which also funds synchronizing San Francisco traffic lights, expanding ferry parking in Marin, improvements to the 511 traffic-information system and integration of the FasTrak electronic toll collection and Translink universal transit ticket systems.

Mary Currie, district spokeswoman, said the board's finance committee will consider "a plan to add a congestion toll" at its March 13 meeting - "with the understanding it's being done to afford the Bay Area the chance to receive $158 million-plus." If it's approved, the board would consider the toll the following day. Details, including the amounts of the variable toll and the times it would be collected, would be determined later, she said.

"The idea is to come forward by the March 31 deadline as the entity that would collect the (congestion-based) toll," Currie said.

Randy Rentschler, spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which has been trying to forge a solution to the Doyle Drive toll dispute, said the Golden Gate action would solve only part of the problem.

"We're hopeful it's something the federal government accepts," he said, "but we'll still have to deal with Doyle Drive."

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