Jazzop

After spending an hour in inbound Lincoln Tunnel traffic at 2 a.m., all due to no one having an EZ-Pass, I am baffled. Since there are plenty of NY/NJers who frequent this forum, perhaps you can shed some light on this. Even if you don't have reason to frequent Manhattan, NJ residents have the GSP and Turnpike to contend with. Why on earth would anyone with a car in this area NOT have an EZ-Pass!?!?!

CHIC SILBER

If you are using your car as a getaway vehicle

cordelli

The usual excuse used over and over and over again is they don't want their movements tracked. They want to go to Jersey and back and not have anybody have an easily accessible record of it (the EZ Pass Record).

I totally feel your pain, it happens on other places (the George Washington, the New Rochelle Tolls, etc) where at night the cash only line is so long it blocks access to the dozen open EZ Pass Lanes.

The Staten Island Borough President just last week asked the MTA:

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Use E-ZPass, or pay a buck more to use Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) bridges and tunnels.

That's Borough President James Molinaro's suggestion to MTA honchos, saying that the policy would add $77 million to the beleaguered authority's coffers, smooth traffic flow and improve the environment.

"E-ZPass users shouldn't be inconvenienced by having to wait on line behind the cash-payers, not to mention all the pollution that's caused by the idling vehicles on the toll plaza," Molinaro wrote in a letter to Chairman & CEO Jay H. Walder and Staten Island representative Allen Cappelli.

I think a buck is not anywhere near enough

dkelly1110

Amen. Double!

Blumie

For some reason, it's far worse in the Boston area, where a seemingly higher proportion of drivers do not have a FastLane transponder, Massachusetts's EZ Pass equivalent.

themicah

I've often wondered about this myself. I don't even own a car and I have an EZ Pass.

I think VERY few of the people you see lined up to pay cash are doing it because of EZ Pass privacy concerns, however. I think the vast majority have very short-sighted economic mindsets or are just too lazy to get an EZ Pass.

Also, the default EZ Pass issuing authorities for NY and NJ if you click those states on the EZ Pass website charge a $1/mo fee that I'll bet turns off a lot of people who don't use toll roads very often.

themicah

Does anybody know if it's still possible to get an EZ Pass through MTA Bridges and Tunnels without the $1/mo PANYNJ service fee?

When I signed up a few years ago, linking through the EZ Pass links on mta.info took me to a different signup page on ezpassny.com that didn't have the $1 fee that showed up if you went directly through ezpassny.com (or through one of the other authorities' websites). And I've never paid anything on my EZ Pass except the tolls charged.

But this thread reminded me that I should make my sister sign up for one since she's driving down from upstate more these days, and it looks like mta.info now links to the same $1/mo fee page as all the other NY authorities.

cordelli

I can't say for all states, but do know that many states have imposed fees as people rushed to them when they did not have fees. As each state would add a monthly fee, people would seek out the states that did not have it and apply there. From last year:

The Maryland Transportation Authority initially did not charge fees. But it cost so much to deal with out-of-staters who had accounts -- but never drove in Maryland -- that the state began charging $1.50 per month for service and $21 for the transponder on July 1, Crawford said.

About 72,000 of the state's roughly 535,000 E-ZPass account-holders hadn't used their transponders to pay a Maryland toll in the past year and the annual cost of maintaining those dormant accounts was $1.9 million, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Pennsylvania gets a $3 yearly fee, that's probably as low as it gets, some states take $1.50 a month.

The Peace Bridge EZ pass in upstate New York (not the same as the one in the rest of the state) use to be fee free, Don't know if that's still the case or not.

nrr

At all of the rest stops on the Garden State Pkwy and the Jersey Tpke the signs for the rest area note that you can get an EZ-Pass there; the lines for CASH at the toll barriers can easily be an hour. Even if one had to pay an extra fee, getting an EZ-Pass is certainly worth it as a time saver. The casual "summer" traveler could just cancel his account at the end of August.

themicah

Yeah. I applied through MTA Bridges and Tunnels specifically because MTA didn't have the $1/mo fee when the default NY authority did. If they are charging a fee now, I seem to have been grandfathered in.

Wikipedia's list of fees by agency still shows MTA (and NYS Thruway) not having a fee, however, so I wonder if maybe if you apply directly (rather than online) you can still get an EZ Pass without a fee?

The Peace Bridge Authority does appear to still be fee free, but it says on their website that they reserve the right to close accounts who don't actually use the bridge. And when you go to apply as a New Yorker, it asks if you intend to use the Peace Bridge. If you click yes, it gives you the Peace Bridge Authority application. If you say no, it redirects to the regular NY application with the $1 fee.

swag

When they first came out with electronic tags for the toll roads here in Dallas, there was both a monthly fee and a small per-toll surcharge for tag users. The tags were not very popular. Later, they dropped those fees, and finally, changed to a system where tag users pay less than cash/non-tag users.

Now that they save money, the vast majority of toll road users have the tags.

The SI Prez has the right idea.

travelmad478

I fully agree with that. There are an awful lot of people who have drivers' licenses but not a lot of brains (for an illustration of this, just look around you the next time you're waiting at DMV!)

All this monthly fee discussion surprised me. I live in Delaware and there's no fee, unless you opt to receive a paper statement every month.

I thank God (or more accurately, I thank my Amtrak Guest Rewards account!) that I rarely have to drive through the tunnels into Manhattan. Getting stuck behind that clog of idiots while waiting to reach the clear-as-a-bell EZ-Pass lane would drive me completely over the edge.

andyli

Wikipedia is correct. If you get an EZPass with the label with MTA Bridges & Tunnels or New York State Thruway, it's fee-free. PANYNJ are charged $1. MTA B&T used to charge a $1 fee, but the NY state legislature (if I recall correctly) told them to stop (through legislation).

You can definitely get a non-PANYNJ tag, although I'm not sure of the exact process (it might be as simple as writing a note in the paper application).

ijgordon

Wait a second -- isn't the toll already higher for cash vs. EZPass???

cordelli

In some locations, only during non rush hour, in others the discount is less than a dollar. I think he wants to include rush hour too for the discount.

Just a guess here, but the way it's worded he wants to up the cash fare another buck instead of discount it for EZ pass use.