Jacksonville will be getting toll lanes for the first time in over a generation in 2016 or 2017.

But the new tolls will look nothing like what Duval County voters got rid of in 1989.

On Thursday, the Florida Department of Transportation announced it was adding two lanes to three sections of Interstate 295. Those new lanes - one in each direction - will be tolled.

Tolling will be done electronically, with no toll booths, similar to what is in place on Interstate 95 in Miami and Interstate 85 in Atlanta.

The existing lanes of I-295 will remain free, with the two toll lanes functioning as an "express lane" for people who want to get through traffic faster. A barrier will be installed to keep the free and toll lanes separate.

Toll lanes will be installed from the Buckman Bridge to Interstate 95, from the Dames Point bridge to Interstate 95 and from Butler Boulevard to Florida 9B.

The cost will be $150 million in construction, with a total cost of about $200 million when design, environmental studies and the cost of land is factored in, Northeast Florida District Secretary Greg Evans said.

The cost of the toll will likely vary depending on time of day and how many people are using the express lanes, a concept that transportation officials refer to as "dynamic pricing."

"We'll raise the price when there are too many vehicles in those lanes, and lower it when there aren't enough," FDOT development engineer James Bennett said.

People believe the goal is to maximize revenue, he said, but the real goal is to have a balance between the number of vehicles in the express lane compared to the free lanes.

The revenue will go toward maintaining I-295 and other roads in Northeast Florida, Bennett said.

Efforts to get toll lanes into Florida got a boost this year when the state passed a law authorizing FDOT to establish tolls on roadways, provided that the tolls didn't take away capacity that had already existed. The law established a policy that new capacity should be tolled whenever it was feasible.

State Rep. Janet Adkins, R-Fernandina Beach, was a co-sponsor of the law. She did not return a call for comment.

The decision to proceed with the project was made by Evans and state Transportation Secretary Ananth Prasad, FDOT spokesman Mike Goldman said.

The toll lanes were not well publicized and the state's plan to do this does not appear to have been discussed at any public forums.

Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown, who'd previously opposed a state plan to build the First Coast Outer Beltway on the Westside as a toll road, said he is happy it offers free lanes.

"As I have said previously, I do not support tolls," Brown said in a written statement. "My goal is to ensure that Jacksonville residents who use these highways continue to have access to free lanes at all times."

His spokesman, David DeCamp, said Thursday night the mayor was neither for nor against the project.

Tolls will be collected using a fully automated system called SunPass, which has become ubiquitous in areas like Interstate 95 in Miami and on the Florida Turnpike.

SunPass allows traffic to move at full speed through a toll area that automatically deducts tolls from a credit card account via a transponder that has been attached to the front windshield of someone's car. If someone doesn't have a transponder, the license plate is photographed and a bill is sent to the owner of the car.

Most local officials reacted positively to the news Thursday. But Evans acknowledged that the general public would not be as enthusiastic.

"There will be a major education campaign launched before this begins," he said.

Jacksonville Transportation Authority Chairman Edward Burr said the toll lanes would help with economic development. Burr said when he was chairman of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce "commute times were always a big concern for businesses looking to come."

The new lanes would help the area's job recruitment ability, he said.

St. Johns County Commissioner Mark Miner said the lanes would benefit his constituents.

"It's important to remember that 40 percent of our workforce goes to work in Duval every day," Miner said. "This should make it easier for them."

Jacksonville had tolls on the Mathews, Hart, Fuller Warren and Trout River bridges and on Butler Boulevard - and were planned for the new Dames Point bridge - until Duval County voters approved a 1988 referendum to replace tolls with a local half-cent sales tax in the county. The tolls went away in 1989, and the tax is still in place.

Tommy Hazouri, who was mayor at the time and pushed to get rid of the tolls, criticized the planned toll lanes.

"If this goes forward, then the city should give back the money it collected from the sales tax," Hazouri said.

People agreed to tax themselves because the city agreed to never bring tolls back. And even though this is the state and not the city, it's still a violation of trust, Hazouri said.

But Jacksonville City Councilman Bill Bishop said the city couldn't be held to a vote that happened almost 25 years ago.

"The 1988 decision was made based on economics of the time," Bishop said. "Our 2012 economics are very different, and there's no such thing as a free road."

The toll lanes are fair because people don't have to use them, he said.

Prasad said gas tax financing of roads is not sustainable, and tolls will be the first choice for financing all new capacity and major bridge replacements in Florida.

The Miami toll lanes have worked well, Miami FDOT spokesman Brian Rick said.

Statistics for March, the latest month available, show there were 1.9 million trips on the toll lanes, generating about $1.8 million in revenue.

About 53 million trips have occurred on the lanes since it opened in 2008, Rick said.

"What many people didn't realize is that it ended up improving the times on the regular lanes by pulling cars off of them and onto the express lanes," Rick said.

larry.hannan@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4470