NJ senate president proposes frequent E-ZPass driver discounts to Corzine plan

New Jersey senate president Richard J Codey is proposing frequent driver discounts as a way of easing the pain of toll increases proposed by Gov Corzine. He's suggesting a 20% discount for tolls with monthly bills of over $200 and smaller discounts of 15, 10 and 5 percent for smaller bills. The discounts would be applied to E-ZPass accounts. About 60% of tolls in the state are taken by E-ZPass.

Codey who was acting governor for about a year after Gov James McGreevey resigned from office in a homosexual scandal is a quietly spoken Democrat whose district is adjacent to the northern portion of the Garden State Parkway.

"We must be prepared to move forward with a way to help offset the cost to those who will be hit hardest," Codey says. Also he says the discounts need to be built into the toll concession of the proposed new public toll operator.

"If tolls are going to rise contractually, then residents have every right to insist that their discounts not be arbitrarily revoked at some point in the future."

In the past discounts have been provided, then a few years later removed when an administration wants to raise revenue without a formal increase in tolls.

Codey says he is just suggesting a "framework" for discounts and that the Corzine administration should take the idea and do the details.

Codey is one of the top Democrat legislators in New Jersey and Democrats form the majority in both houses, so his support for the Corzine plan - albeit a modified version - is an important positive for the Governor.

The Dulles Greenway in Northern Virginia offers bonuses to frequent users - but in the form of free mile credits.  407ETR in Toronto has a similar system of bonus miles, no, kilometers.

No discrimination by state of driver allowed

Under the US constitution discounts cannot discriminate according to the state of the driver, so all drivers on New Jersey tollroads would have to be eligible.

This could be a new challenge for the E-ZPass Inter Agency Group (IAG) to deal with. The IAG system is set up to have posted tolls to accounts on a daily basis.

Maybe end of the month credits due from the frequent driver program in New Jersey could be handled as reversal of tolls - as topups to the account. TOLLROADSnews 2008-01-25