Since 1999, TSTC has been pushing for the MTA, which operates seven bridges and two tunnels in New York City, to convert its congestion- and pollution-inducing toll booths to gateless, cashless, all-electronic, high-speed open-road tolls. In 2011, the MTA took a small step toward speeding up tolling by removing gates on the Henry Hudson Bridge toll booths, increasing lane capacity by 25 percent, and went fully cashless in November of last year.
But the MTA’s expansion of cashless tolling beyond the Henry Hudson Bridge has been slow going, especially compared to other bridges and tunnels in the region. The Thruway Authority, Port Authority and the New Jersey Turnpike Authority are gearing up to convert to all-electronic tolling (AET) in the future, and the new Tappan Zee Bridge will be built without toll booths as well.
It now appears that cities across the country are primed to leapfrog the MTA when it comes to cashless tolling. AET is already in use on Maryland’s Intercounty Connector and North Carolina’s Triangle Expressway. On Wednesday, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge will become the first major toll bridge to convert to all-electronic tolls, bringing speedier commutes to 112,000 motorists a day. Converting to all-electronic tolling on the MTA’s iconic bridges and tunnels will have an even greater environmental and economic benefit for 800,000 daily motorists and for the region as a whole.
Your blog seems to miss the point that the MTA has the only cashless all-electronic pilot under way in the NY Metro region at the Henry Hudson Bridge. While the other agencies are gearing up and studying, the MTA has implemented months prior to the effort at the Golden Gate in San Francisco. In addition, the MTA has taken care to foind ways to deal effectively with those that want to remain as cash payers by implementing a network of kiosks at retailers that allow a cash payer to anonymously be part of the E-ZPass network.
Suggest you find out more about the Henry Hudson Bridge implementation and you will see that the MTA is actually in the forefront of all-electronic and not as you portray them.
This rarely happens but on this topic I totally disagree with TSTC. As someone who rarely drives the toll roads in our region, I like having the option of paying cash. Being forced to buy an E-Z Pass or even a prepayed transponder will be a major annoyance. I think here in New Jersey this will move more traffic from our large toll roads, that were built to handle large traffic volumes, onto “free” highways and surface streets.
It’s bad enough that NJ has jacked up tolls instead of raising the gas tax. It has been my observation that this has pushed a lot of local commuters off the Turnpike and onto surface streets and other highways. Now that driving the Turnpike north of Exit 9 is 10 times as expensive as taking the Parkway and surface streets, the Parkway is packed while the Turnpike which can handle huge traffic volumes, remains way under capacity.
Yes, highway speed EZ Pass for those that choose it but keep the cash option those of us who drive toll roads and bridges less than 20 times a year.
Well, the higher TBTA, PA, and NJ tolls have certainly changed my shopping habits. I used to shop in NYC, and NJ. Now, it is all Westchester County and toll free.
@andrew j besold
Its time to move on with times. How many times you have to buy ez-pass? Only once in lifetime. I dont know about ny or nj, but in IL there are no maintanace fees, the loaded funds which yiu can later reload from credit card never expire and rates for using transporder at tollways is cheaper than by paying cash. In addition you dont have to stop and keep going.
The world moves on. No one goes to blockbuster stores to rent dvds anymore, you get it from redbox kiosk at your local grocery or download at home from the internet. No one misses them. No one will miss toll booths with traffic congestion after conversion to cashless tollways for sure.
how about simplicity to reduce pollution ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ALL (repeat: ALL) EZ pass lanes left and ALL (repeat: ALL) cash lanes right – – – – – – – mixing lanes causes delays and accidents – – – – – – –
[…] advance for motorists — cashless tolls. Advocates pressed the MTA to adopt cashless tolling for more than a decade, the agency’s pilot programs stagnated for ages, and other tolling authorities eventually […]