Port Authority wants to free up traffic at New Jersey river crossings

I hate driving into and out of New Jersey. I hate it with a passion. For four years, New Jersey was this wasteland of toll traffic that interfered with my trip to and from New York City and Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

Every trip — no matter if it was 9 p.m. or 1 a.m. or whenever — I could always count on toll traffic at the Lincoln Tunnel. For miles, cars would sit, inching their way along in the one E-ZPass Only lane while those paying cash took up the rest of the space. Without the tolls, I’ve always said, the Lincoln Tunnel (and the George Washington Bridge and the Holland Tunnel) would be tolerable. Soon, I may get the chance to find out if I’m right as the Port Authority is considering whether or not to fund a study that would look at the costs and benefits of removing the tollbooths and going with a dedicated electronic payment system at all river crossings.

This news, in the Tuesday edition of The New York Times, is blissful music to my ears. I imagine a smoother ride to the tunnel and a quicker trip into Manhattan. No more suicidal traffic jams and 45-minute trips to go four miles at the edge of New Jersey. But am I being too optimistic, too idealistic? The Times will tell us:

The head of the agency, which operates six tunnels and bridges that empty more than 125 million cars, trucks and buses into New York City each year, said yesterday that in a few weeks it would consider financing a study to look at removing tollbooths and at the impact that would have on traffic and pricing.

By going cashless and asking all drivers to use an electronic E-ZPass, said Anthony E. Shorris, the executive director of the Port Authority, the agency hopes to introduce what it calls “dynamic pricing,” charging higher tolls during peak periods and lower tolls when traffic is lighter. Mr. Shorris also said that going entirely electronic would improve air quality because cars and trucks would spend less time idling at toll barriers.

Shorris is surrounding this plan in the language of environmental protection and technological advancement. “An all-electronic toll system could be a tremendous boon to our road transportation system, helping to smooth the choke points at bridges and tunnels, reduce traveler delays, and potentially provide for benefits to regional air quality” Shorris said in a Port Authority press release. “This would mark the end of the tollbooth as we know it, replacing these brick and mortar symbols of the 20th century with the digital imaging technology of the 21st century.”

So far, so good. I like what I’m hearing. Furthermore, as The Times points out, an all-E-ZPass system would indeed ease the tollbooth bottleneck. Currently, a toll collector can take money from around 400 cars an hour while E-ZPass lanes see around 1400 cars an hour. With 12 or so inbound toll lanes converting from collector to electronic monitoring, the tollbooths could process 12,000 an hour.

Of course, there are a few downsides that this report, when finally funded, researched and issued, will reveal. First, the Port Authority will have to find a way to reallocate 185 unionized workers who currently staff the tollbooths. But more importantly will be the piece of the puzzle telling us what the impact of up to 12,000 more payig cars an hour will be on the six bridges and tunnels that the Port Authority controls.

Will the traffic just move from the tollbooths to the crossings themselves? Or will the roads flow swifter as most of the traffic exists in the approach to the tolls? We’ll know once this report is issued, but I, for one, look forward to the day when toll traffic is no longer a burden on people driving up and down the East Coast.