Fees on Route 22, I-78 will climb next month
Tolls on Route 22 and Interstate 78 over the Delaware River will triple for some motorists starting next month, after the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission approved its first toll hike in a decade Monday morning.
Under the plan, drivers with E-ZPass will pay $1.25 to cross from New Jersey into Pennsylvania beginning April 11, a 25-cent increase from the current toll. The plan calls for another hike in 2024, to $1.50.
Drivers without E-ZPass will take a bigger hit to their wallets. After the pandemic began, the commission eliminated its toll
collector positions and switched to a toll-by-plate system.
The new $3 toll rate for cars without E-ZPass is intended to absorb the new costs of the system.
The toll-by-plate rate will remain at $3 in 2024.
The bi-state commission passed the hike by a 9-0 margin in a virtual meeting Monday. Commissioner Amy Zanelli, a member of the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners who is running for district judge, was late to the meeting and missed the toll hike vote.
None of the five Pennsylvania commissioners offered any comment before or after their votes.
Joe Resta, the commission’s executive director, said the commission hoped to go another year or two without raising tolls. The coronavirus abruptly ended those plans, rewriting normal travel patterns almost overnight. With countless people out of work or telecommuting, 11.8 million fewer vehicles passed through the commission’s tolling locations in 2020 compared with 2019.
Commissioner Lori Ciesla, of Lopatcong, New Jersey, noted that commercial vehicles will bear the biggest brunt of the changes.
Five-axle tractor-trailers will see their tolls climb $2.50 to $22.50, even with the E-ZPass discount.
The rate for seven-axle big rigs will climb from $3.50 to $31.50 with an E-ZPass. General motorists had been getting a good deal at the $1 rate, she said.
Commissioner Yuki Laurenti, of Trenton, said the E-ZPass discount should help most regular commuters avoid serious financial pains from the hike. However, a significant chunk of the people without E-ZPass are the working poor, and they’ll be hurt the most. She supported the hike with some reluctance, she said.
“People who don’t have E-ZPass are being asked to dig much deeper,” Laurenti said. “It is an issue of equity. This should not be so.”
The hike will apply to the commission’s eight toll bridges, which include the Portland-Columbia Toll Bridge, the Route 22 bridge and the I-78 bridge in the Lehigh Valley. The tolls support a dozen other bridges owned by the commission, including the Easton free bridge.