The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission on Monday approved its first toll increase in a decade, raising cash tolls for passenger vehicles from $1 to $3.
The increases, which affect rates for every vehicle class, were approved by an 8-1 vote. New Jersey Commissioner Lori Ciesla, who also serves as a Warren County commissioner, was the lone “no” vote.
The increase is “an infrequent event, not entered into without purpose and need, and consequential for the commission’s patrons,” said Joseph Resta, the commission’s executive director.
The toll changes affect the commission’s eight toll bridges spanning the Delaware River between New Jersey and Pennsylvania, including the Route 22 and Interstate 78 crossings in the Easton area.
For passenger cars, the tolls would increase on seven bridges on April 11 to $3 for cash-paying passenger cars, $1.25 for E-ZPass customers. These are the current car toll rates at the new Scudder Falls Bridge on I-295. The full list of increases can be found at drjtbc.org/newtolls.
There was no public comment made during Monday’s virtual hearing, which is not unusual, but commissioners mentioned receiving submitted comments from affected residents.
The New Jersey Sierra Club has decried the toll increases.
“We knew this was going to happen because we knew that the $540 million Scudder Falls Bridge project couldn’t support itself. Even though they added tolls for the bridge, we said that they would have to raise the tolls for all of the other bridges to help pay for it. Instead of rehabbing the existing bridge, they built a massive dual-span bridge that was unnecessary and too expensive,” said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “What’s worse is that they are raising tolls by $2 in the middle of a financial crisis. People are worried about losing their jobs and paying their bills. Now they will be worried about these higher tolls too.”
New Jersey Commissioner Yuki Moore Laurenti said she was reluctantly approving the increases.
She stressed the tolled bridges support the commission’s non-tolled, or free, bridges. The commission is barred from tolling those smaller bridges.
“This is a difficult time for our traveling public and the commission,” she said. “Our bridges have suffered a substantial drop in revenue from passenger cars as commuter traffic has dried up. Rightly, this toll increase that is proposed will fall most heavily on the commercial sector that has successfully weathered the COVID storm. The impact on drivers of passenger cars is relatively mild, with one exception: People who don’t have EZ-Pass are being asked to dig deeper in their pockets with a much-stiffer toll increase.”
Tittel countered that drivers try to avoid paying tolls by using the free bridges, leading to traffic congestion and pollution from idling vehicles.
“Raising tolls in the middle of a pandemic and fiscal emergency is shameful. It won’t solve anything, it will only make people avoid these bridges and push more traffic and congestion onto free bridges,” he said in a news release.
The commission approved a 2021 budget with no toll increases, but earlier this year announced the toll increase proposals to help with traffic fallout during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Resta said Monday the commission was planning to consider increasing tolls in 2022-23 to fund future projects, but the pandemic’s effects on the commission’s traffic and revenue accelerated that timeframe.
The pandemic, statewide shutdowns and changes in jobs and commuting meant the DRJTBC lost $14.5 million in revenue last year, and toll collections never returned to the pre-COVID norm, Resta has said.
“As compared to many toll agencies, a single-toll increase every decade or so is rare, but at the bridge commission it has been commonplace,” he said. “The economic recession and the changes that it has brought to what we all perceived as the workplace have long-lasting and potentially permanent effects on the transportation sector, for which the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission must prepare for. The traffic and revenue losses produced by the recession have a long-term effect on the commission’s finances, hampering its ability to carry out its mission and capital plan.”
The DRJTBC operates eight toll bridges: the I-295 Scudder Falls Toll Bridge and the Trenton-Morrisville Route 1, New Hope-Lambertville Route 202, I-78, Easton-Phillipsburg Route 22, Portland-Columbia Routes 611, 46 & 94, Delaware Water Gap I-80, and the Milford-Montague Route 206 bridges.
The last DRJTBC toll increase was in 2011, when the toll jumped from 75 cents to $1 for cash-paying passenger vehicles, 45 cents to 60 cents for the E-ZPass commuter discount, and 75 cents more for multi-axle trucks and commercial vehicles.
Currently, 2-axle class 1 passenger vehicles pay a $1 toll in cash or 60 cents through E-ZPass with a commuter discount.
In April, tolls for class 1 vehicles will increase to $3 for cash, $3 for Toll By Plate at the new Scudder Falls bridge, and $1.25 for E-ZPass customers.
Class 1 vehicles with a trailer or towing a vehicle are currently charged an additional dollar, regardless of the number of rolling axles. Next month that charge will increase to $2.
The E-ZPass commuter discount will drop to 20% in April and stay that way through 2023. The discount applies to drivers that make 16 or more trips across DRJTBC toll bridges with a commission-affiliated E-ZPass tag in a calendar month.
The E-ZPass commuter discount will end in January 2024, just as the class 1 passenger vehicle E-ZPass toll will increase from $1.25 to $1.50.
For other vehicles, including box trucks, buses, certain types of vans, and tractor trailers, a new “uniform commercial vehicle rate table” means tolls of $4.50 per-axle for E-ZPass customers, with $5 per-axle tolls for cash and Toll By Plate Scudder Falls customers starting this April.
At that time, the 10% off-peak E-ZPass discount for commercial vehicles will also be eliminated.
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com.
Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com.