DRJTBC

TOLLROADSnews has come into possession of a recording of a recent telephone conversation between New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (CC) and Frank McCartney (FMcC), executive director of the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission on the matter of a public private partnership (P3) to revamp the Scudder Falls Bridge on I-95 near Trenton. A guy with a Cockney accent called: "just hunred poonds, mighty cheap it is."

A single open road toll (ORT) lane on I-80 at the Delaware Water Gap bridge toll point is consistently carrying more traffic than five conventional toll lanes alongside, Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission  reports.  Traffic has been steaming through the leftside ORT lane at about 2,000 vehicles per hour (1.8 seconds per vehicle) during weekday peak periods, whereas the conventional toll lanes tend to back up when traffic goes above about 400

Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission are raising the tolls on their PA-NJ bridges from Trenton north by around 30% July 1. Car tolls are to rise 33%, 2-axle truck tolls 30%, and 5-axle and larger trucks buy 23%. These are the first toll increases since 2007 when truck tolls were last increased. It is the first across-the-board toll increase since 2001.

Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (DRJTBC) voted today to end their longstanding employee benefit of free rides with E-ZPass over their seven toll bridges. Commission chairman David DeGerolamo in a statement said the end to free rides for workers was requested initially by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and then that request was endorsed by Pennsylvania Tom Corbett.

It's unspectacular work everyone tends to take for granted but it can make a big difference to the life of roads and bridges - fixing winter's potholes and breakup of pavement, and repairing floods' scouring around the top of bridge piles.

They call it the Express E-ZPass lane - what we call generically open road tolling (ORT). It's a single highway speed electronic toll lane on I-80 at the toll point for the Delaware Water Gap Bridge over the upper Delaware River between New Jersey and Pennsylvania near Stroudsburg PA. They opened it in a provisional configuration November 22 alongside five stop-to-pay cash lanes that also accept an E-ZPass transponder. (Tolling here is westbound only.)

Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (DRJTBC) have dedicated a $200,000 boat ramp constructed as part of repairs to the nearby Washington Crossing Toll Supported Bridge. A ramp was helpful to the bridgeworks, but in discussion with local groups it developed into being constructed to be a permanent facility.

Escalating his campaign against staff perks, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (Republican) has called on four more toll agencies to end free rides for employees. This is in addition to his tussle with the Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA). Three of the five are bistate or border agencies jointly operated with New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware, and some of the free rides are written into labor contracts, or go back decades.

A traffic and revenue report puts potential toll revenues on the proposed new Scudder Falls bridge near Trenton NJ - the subject of a P3 or private concession procurement - in the range of $22m and $35m/year. If operating costs are a quarter to a third of this then net revenues would be $16m to $24m/year. That's a 5% to 8% return on investment. Little growth is projected.

A private concessionaire is almost certain to be sought now for a new bridge over the Delaware River at Scudder Falls a few miles upriver of Trenton NJ. The river is the boundary between Pennsylvania and New Jersey.