The Fort McHenry Tunnel: a toll road, not the monument

What the toll costs

For a two-axle car it is $3.00 with a Maryland E-ZPass, $4.00 paying cash or at the standard rate, and $6.00 by video toll, which is the one that finds you by licence plate and costs the most. The gap between the E-ZPass rate and the video rate is the whole argument for having a transponder if you drive this corridor with any regularity.

What I am not going to tell you

How long the tunnel is, how far under the water it runs, and whether the toll is charged in one direction or both. Those three questions are the most-searched things about this crossing and I have not verified any of them, so I am not going to print a number that sounds right. The operator publishes its own toll schedule and route information; use that rather than a figure copied off a travel page.

Why the mix-up happens at all

Search for Fort McHenry and you get two unrelated results welded together: a National Park Service site and a stretch of interstate. They share a name and nothing else. Driving through the tunnel does not take you past the fort, does not include anything at the fort, and has no bearing on what you pay at the gate. The fort’s own numbers are on tickets and prices, and if you are coming by car, getting there has the address.

Seeing the harbour from the water instead

If the harbour itself is the draw, the 45-minute Inner Harbor sightseeing cruise crosses it on the surface and names the fort as a sight along the way. None of it includes entry to the star fort. That is a National Park Service ticket, sold at the gate and nowhere else.

Frequently asked questions