Higher tolls take effect at Hudson River bridges, tunnels

NorthJersey.com ^ | December 6, 2015 | MARINA VILLENEUVE

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

It’s no surprise that the commuters and commercial truck-drivers who regularly slog across the George Washington Bridge are not happy with the news: Starting Sunday, auto motorists using cash will have to pay $15 to cross, a trip that until recently cost half that.

They are the drivers from North Jersey and beyond who help make it the world’s busiest motor-vehicle bridge.

And they are the same drivers who now must pay one of the most expensive tolls in the country.

On Saturday afternoon, motorists were given a chance to vent, and they were more than willing to step up.

Cousins Sammy and Riza Jata, self-employed commercial truck drivers who regularly cart Chobani, Dannon yogurts and other dairy products back and forth across the bridge, were interviewed at the Starbucks on Route 4 east in Fort Lee, just south of the bridge.

Each day, Sammy Jata of North Haledon drives his truck across the GWB, the Triboro Bridge and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which cost even more to cross. With his two cars and two trucks, Jata estimates he pays $20,000 a year in tolls alone. Depending on the size of the truck he’s driving, Jata could now pay much more than cars.

“The people should protest,” said Riza Jata of Palisades Park, who regularly picks up hitchhikers to save money with a discount available to car-poolers.

But even that strategy is testing him lately. Jata said it seems more people are catching on to the idea, meaning longer waits in the cash lane. He added that he often has to fight to make sure the cheaper toll is reflected on his E-ZPass statement.

“It sometimes makes me consider moving to Texas,” he said. “I’m thinking about it. Maybe Austin, Dallas.”

At the New Jersey Turnpike’s Vince Lombardi Service Area in Ridgefield, Jason Greenberg of Hackensack said he remembered when the toll cost a quarter of the new rate.

“Where is all the money going?” asked Greenberg, who described himself as an occasional crosser of the GWB. “Originally, tolls were for repairing bridges.”

The toll increases that are now in effect at all the interstate bridges and tunnels are expected to bring in an additional $123 million next year, the Port Authority estimates. The George Washington Bridge alone — the most profitable of all the Port Authority’s facilities — will net more than $595 million total in 2016.

The toll increases are the last in a series of staged hikes included in a controversial package approved by the Port Authority’s board in 2011. Two years later, The Record revealed that the increase was part of a coordinated plan by Governor Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to subvert public input and advance an even higher increase, only to impose a slightly more modest hike to make themselves appear financially responsible.

The toll hike will hit truckers especially hard: A typical five-axle tractor-trailer will now pay more than $100 per round trip, a $10 bump to $105 in the cash toll.

In a 2016 budget released Monday, the Port Authority plans to rely largely on toll revenue for the $6.5 billion needed to run the agency and to continue $3.5 billion in large-scale construction projects across the region next year.

Those projects include a $461 million overhaul of La Guardia Airport’s Terminal B, $15 million for designing a new midtown Manhattan bus terminal and $978 million to complete the World Trade Center complex.

Shayna Roser of Teaneck, who also was at the Starbucks in Fort Lee on Saturday, criticized the agency’s handling of such projects. The renovation of the authority’s uptown bus terminal, she said, “was supposed to cost half the money.”

Roser estimated she takes the bridge four to eight times a week to visit family and friends in New York City with her 5-year-old daughter, Lianni.

Roser said the toll hikes are “absolutely absurd.

“It’s not just the tolls,” she said. “It’s not even cost effective to live here.”

Dino Dondiego, a Westfield resident who owns a 26-year-old, non-surgical hair-replacement business in Englewood with customers on both sides of the Hudson, called the increases “counterproductive” for the broader economy.

“It’s not just the increase,” he said at the Vince Lombardi service area. “It slows down people from commuting back and forth to Manhattan.”

Dondiego said there should be some sort of law to regulate future increases, and that the toll is just one of his expenses that keep rising.

“It is another way of taxing us again,” he said.

Johnnie Burns lives in the Bronx and takes the bridge every day to get to his job in North Jersey.

Burns remembers his mother telling him, “‘Soon you’re not going to be able to live here.’”

“They never say anything about decreasing the toll, it’s just always going to go up,” he said with a sigh.

[2banana]

Public Union Goon pensions WILL be paid.

[GunsareOK]

Just another good reason not to live there.

[JOAT]

Riza Jata of Palisades Park - "It sometimes makes me consider moving to Texas, he said. I'm thinking about it. Maybe Austin, Dallas."

Fantastic. Import your crappy culture to Texas.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Seriously? Do you actually know which country he’s from?

[eyeamok]

Gotta Love it, Taxpayers PAY FOR and Build a Bridge, the Government CHARGES them to use it!

[Covenantor]

...The Record revealed that the increase was part of a coordinated plan by Governor Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to subvert public input and advance an even higher increase, only to impose a slightly more modest hike to make themselves appear financially responsible....

Ah yes, the conservative, so called, Christie in cahoots with Cuomo staging a bit of political to fool the populous.

"That Christie, holding the line against tolls that are killing the working class and commerce. What a guy!"

[i_robot73]

“In a 2016 budget released Monday, the Port Authority plans to rely largely on toll revenue for the $6.5 billion needed to run the agency and to continue $3.5 billion in large-scale construction projects across the region next year.”

Something is VERY wrong in Denmark...$6.5+B for the department alone? Which is 1/2 of what is going for ‘infrastructure’ (graft); so MORE tolls can go in??

[tanknetter]

On top of that, commericial vehicles crossing the bridge are carrying a lot of taxable items. And non-commercial vehicles are carrying people who will be taxed on their purchases.

The way to deal with this is to not pay the tolls by not crossing the bridge. The Laffer Curve shows what will happen, assuming that they’re on the downward/right side of the curve.

Particularly the commercial vehicles. Think of how much product flows i to the city by truck, and how long it would take for shortages to set in if the flow were to constrict. Watch what happens when Manhattanites can’t get their fresh produce and the like

[fruser1]

Sounds like they need something like the boston tea party here. Have some folks physically block the toll collectors why busting down anything that blocks the road.

Bring back tar and feathering?

[griswold3]

” $6.5 billion needed to run the agency and to continue $3.5 billion in large-scale construction projects across the region next year. “

[centurion316]

The real tragedy is that people in New York and New Jersey are not allowed to leave. We used to have a free country where people could just pick up and move whenever they wanted.

[jimjohn]

The GWB is now $15 a pop??

geez, people!!

I’m suppose to go there for Christmas. What’s the TZ up to? Last I crossed it, it was $6.00

[libertarian27]

http://beta.costtodrive.com/new-york-tolls/
The Tappan Zee apparently is $5

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

It was $5.00 when I crossed it this summer. You’re better off using that one, anyway. People strip breakdowns on the GWB.