Tolls on the bridges operated by the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission will increase on April 11 and again in 2024 after commissioners voted Monday to raise them for the first time in 10 years.
Commissioners cited the decline in passenger car traffic and toll revenue caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the burden of maintaining 13 toll “free” bridges with revenue from the seven toll bridges.
The commission approved the toll increase package on Monday with one change from an early February proposal. The increase will take effect at midnight Sunday, April 11 instead of April 3.
Car tolls increase from $1 to $1.25 for drivers with an E-ZPass account and from $1 to $3 for car drivers who pay cash at seven bridges. Those rates affect the Trenton-Morrisville (Route 1), New Hope-Lambertville (Route 202), I-78, Easton-Phillipsburg (Route 22), Portland-Columbia (Routes 611, 46, and 94), Delaware Water Gap (I-80), and Milford-Montague (Route 206) bridges.
The E-ZPass rate for passenger vehicles stays at $1.25 at the new Scudder’s Fall bridge, but the cash toll increases from $2.60 to $3 on April 3.
Commissioner Lori Ciesla of New Jersey cast the lone no vote and said she was concerned about the effect of the $2 increase in cash tolls from $1 to $3 on people who’ve been hard hit financially during the pandemic.
“Up north, commuters have no free option like they do in other areas served by the commission,” she said. “While some may be able to get an E-ZPass to deal with the increase, some people can’t afford it. The (cash price) is an inequitable burden on those who can least afford it.
Many people in both states are unemployed or underemployed, due to the pandemic, Ciesla said, adding the increase in the $1 E-ZPass car toll to $1.25 was “long overdue.”
Commissioner and treasurer Yuki Moore Laurenti of New Jersey agreed that the toll increase is “relatively mild”, except for passenger vehicle drivers paying cash.
“People who don’t have E-ZPass are being asked to dig deep in their pockets with a much stiffer toll increase,” she said. “It’s a reasonable proposition that people who don’t have E-ZPass are among the poor, and that as an issue of equity, this should not be so.”
But she said a greater burden will fall on commercial traffic.
“Rightly, the burden will fall heavily on the commercial sector, which has successfully weathered the COVID storm,” Laurenti said. “This is a difficult time for the traveling public and the commission.”
Similar to other toll agencies, the commission saw traffic and revenue fall off at the height of the coronavirus pandemic when travel restrictions were in place and those employees who could work from home. The commission’s net toll revenue for 2020 was $14.48 million less than had been projected in a traffic engineering report, officials said.
COVID-19 impacts have continued into 2021, despite the commission implementing a hiring freeze, delaying the start of major construction, and making 10 percent cuts in discretionary budget lines and freezing salaries in the 2021 operating budget, said Joe Resta, Executive Director.
Officials said more than 75 percent of the Commission’s toll transactions are done by E-ZPass. The Commission’s frequency-based commuter discount would be maintained through 2023, but the discount amount would be reduced to 20 percent from the current 40 percent. This discount is applied as a retroactive credit on an E-ZPass statement when 16 or more tolled trips are made across DRJTBC bridges in a respective calendar month. That discount will disappear in 2024.
In 2024, a second toll increase would take effect. The Class 1 passenger vehicle E-ZPass rate would increase by 25 cents to a $1.50 toll. The Commission’s E-ZPass commuter discount program would be eliminated entirely at all eight of the Commission toll bridges. Commercial vehicles rated class 2 and above would see no toll adjustment.
The commission received a total of 115 comments from hearings, email, letter and phone calls, said Joseph Donnelly, a commission spokesman. The three most cited concerns were this was a bad time to raise tolls, general opposition to toll and discount changes and opposition to the proposed $3 cash toll rate, he said.
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Larry Higgs may be reached at [email protected].