The region saw still more high-speed tolling developments (as well as low-speed announcements by the MTA) this past week:

· The Port Authority Board of commissioners approved a plan to implement high-speed toll lanes at the NJ-Staten Island Outerbridge Crossing. Though we have previously cited 2007 as the project’s completion date, the Port Authority said this week the high-speed Outerbridge lanes will be up and running by next summer.

The project will create two lanes that permit drivers to pay tolls while proceeding at 45 miles per hour, the Outerbridge’s posted speed limit. The PA plans to have high-speed lanes at all of its toll bridges.

Port Authority Vice Chairman and Pataki administration insider Charles Gargano lauded the project as good for commuters and shippers. However, the Pataki administration is still allowing the old blood at MTA Bridges and Tunnels to prevent the MTA from joining the rest of the toll road industry in embracing the potential of electronic toll collection.

· Instead the MTA announced it would try to fight congestion at its toll plazas by continuing to rearrange E-ZPass lanes and increasing fines for drivers who try to back out of toll booths or who fail to correctly attach E-ZPass tags to their vehicles.

The Bridges and Tunnels budget in the MTA 2005-2009 capital program proposal totals $1.25 billion. $92.3 million, or 7% is slated for toll plaza or other traffic management (such as ITS and surveillance equipment installation) projects. We erroneously stated last week that the Verrazano toll plaza would come in for major investment – the Whitestone and Henry Hudson bridges’ plazas are the two explicitly identified for renovation or planning work in the capital program proposal.

The Port Authority said its Outerbridge high speed toll lanes project will cost $9.9M, more or less in line with some of the high speed toll projects implemented on New Jersey’s toll highways.

· The Albany Times-Union last week detailed some of the NY State Thruway Authority’s emerging plans for what it calls "highway-speed" tolls. The article coconfirmed that the 5-year capital program the Thruway is developing projects to eliminate stop-and-go toll payment with E-ZPass applications to allow paying drivers to proceed at the normal highway speed limit. Some projects would install highway speed E-ZPass lanes at main-line toll barriers like New Rochelle, as the NJ Turnpike and Garden State Parkway have done. Others might scrap on-ramp toll plazas in favor of new main-line high speed installations. 

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