Pressure builds for highway-speed ET

At a press conference Jun 22, NJ legislators said they are proposing legislation that will force the NJ Highway Authority (NJHA) to implement highway speed electronic tolling (ET) once traffic on its Garden State Parkway (GSP) reaches a certain trigger point. NJ state senator Robert Martin and assembly transp committee chair Alex DeCroce dropped earlier proposals to order the consolidation of Garden State Parkway toll plazas and to institute new ramp plazas in place of some of the mainline barrier plazas.

Preliminary estimates put the cost of the move to ramp plazas at $350m. The GSPwy has about 300 ramps, most without tolls on them because of the many mainline barrier plazas and the NJHA would be faced with the choice of fighting long battles to acquire extra property or to close ramps. The legislators conceded their initial plan was not a good one, and moved to embrace the idea of directing the NJHA to higher speed electronic tolling. Present plans are for ET to be retrofitted entirely in existing toll lanes with a posted 5mph speed limit.

The NJHA says it is gathering information on highway-speed tolling from the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, the Oklahoma Turnpike, Houston and others. The new Martin-DeCroce legislation would require the Parkway to introduce full-speed toll lanes at any plaza where E-ZPass customers are providing two-thirds of toll revenue.

The activist Tri-State Transp Campaign last week called for NY and NJ toll authorities to develop plans for early implementation of highway-speed ET. It suggested this be modeled on ISHTA and HCTRA installations. It also called for exempting off-peak motorists from toll increases in order to encourage some drivers to shift to the shoulders of the peak and to reduce congestion.