PANYNJ board approves highway speed ET at Outerbridge Crossing

Outerbridge Crossing Staten Is NY-Perth Amboy NJ

The board of commissioners of the Port Authority New York New Jersey have approved a $9.9m project to provide a pair of full highway speed electronic toll (ET) lanes through the Staten Island toll plaza of the Outerbridge Crossing. And they say it is "pilot project" and that will be followed by similar no-slowing tolling at toll plazas of the Geo Washington, the Goethals and the Bayonne bridges. (The Lincoln and Holland Tunnels are more difficult to service with highway speed toll operation.)

The Outerbridge is the most "outer" of the NY-NJ bridges of the Port Authority and connects the southern tip of Staten Island with Perth Amboy NJ providing a lower Manhattan/Brooklyn/Queens connection to the Atlantic Shore and the Garden State Parkway. (But it is actually named after Eugenius Outerbridge the first chairman of the PA). Of 2x2 lanes the bridge carries an average 84k veh/day. The toll plaza which tolls inbound to NY has ten toll lanes at present with the transponder lanes posted for roll-through operation.

The PA announcement says the project will create two barrier-free toll lanes that will allow motorists to travel through the Outerbridge Crossing's toll plaza at the 45 mph speed limit that is posted for the bridge. They hope to have the open road operations in place in less than a year - by summer 2005.

In the statement Port Authority Chairman Anthony R. Coscia said, "One of the goals of Governor McGreevey's administration is to reduce the time commuters spend in their vehicles. Since 1997, the Port Authority's E-ZPass program has greatly improved the way in which people throughout this region travel. The addition of highway-speed E-ZPass at the Outerbridge Crossing will enable us to improve customer service through greater reliability and more efficient traffic flow."

Port Authority Vice Chairman Charles A. Gargano said, "Highway-speed E-ZPass toll lanes will increase convenience for our customers. It will also help us achieve our mandate of moving people and goods in and out and across our region. By allowing travelers the ability to use the dedicated lanes, congestion is decreased at the toll plaza and time is saved for our customers."

Port Authority Executive Director Joseph J. Seymour: "As the number of customers who use E-ZPass to pay tolls at our crossings continues to grow, we have been able to design new plaza configurations to expedite traffic and make facility operations more efficient. This will allow us to improve mobility for the 70 percent of our customers who use E-ZPass, while deploying our cash toll collection resources in the most efficient manner possible."

Currently, there are eight highway-speed toll plazas operated by regional transportation authorities. They are located at interchanges 1, 6 and 18W of the New Jersey Turnpike, the Atlantic City Expressway's Pleasantville Toll Plaza, the Garden State Parkway's Pascack Valley Plaza, and two toll plazas on Delaware One. The Pallisades Parkway plaza of the PANYNJ Geo Washington Bridge is not included in the PANYNJ list. It is a higher speed ET facility but because of the spiral ramp beyond the toll plaza is posted for a lower speed.

The PANYNJ operates the busiest bridges and tunnels in the world in the George Washington Bridge and the the Lincoln Tunnel. TOLLROADSnews 2004-08-08