NJ Governor Corzine against Port Authority E-ZPass perk

A perk for present and past employees of the Port Authority New York New Jersey (PANYNJ) has been criticized by the governor of New Jersey Jon Corzine. The Star Ledger newspaper reported the PANYNJ acknowledgement of the perk and the state governor's disapproval Monday.

3,500 retired and 4,100 current PANYNJ employees have free E-ZPass transponders and PATH rail transit passes costing the PANYNJ about a $1m/year in revenue, the PANYNJ says. This was a "rough estimate" based on a guess that employees make two non-work related toll trips per month.

(If they made two such trips per week it would be costing $4.4m/yr. If they made two such trips per day it would be costing $30.5m/yr. TOLLROADSnews)

PANYNJ is a bistate agency with an equal number of board members nominated by the governor of each state. It runs area airports, sea ports, two rail subways, four toll bridges and two toll tunnels, abus terminal and dabbles in real estate.

New Jersey policy is that employees may only use their E-ZPass and state transit passes for work related travel. New Jersey Turnpike toll collectors and maintenance workers have complained on occasions that they pay tolls on the Turnpike to get to work.

A Corzine spokesman said in an email to the Ledger: "The governor certainly does not condone the issuance of free transit and toll road passes for nonbusiness purposes, as evidenced by DOT policy for use of passes by current employees and by the fact that earlier this year dozens of passes were terminated for former NJ Transit and New Jersey Turnpike executive directors and board members."

The Corzine administration earlier this year terminated free E-ZPass accounts to Turnpike board members.

PANYNJ issue of free E-ZPass transponders and transit passes is an employee benefit written into the current labor contract with unionized employees, so a change in practice would have to be renegotiated or wait on expiry of the contracts.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) of New York the mega-transit agency which manages the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel (toll) Authority also provides free E-ZPass accounts but on a smaller scale - 1,819 to current employees and 1,023 to retirees, the report says.

TOLLROADSnews 2008-08-12