Tollbooth attendants could soon be left in the dust.
Cashless tolls could come to MTA bridges and tunnels after the agency conducts a 14-month study to begin at the end of this month.
The technology could have drivers waving goodbye to awkward cash handoffs and mechanical barriers. Instead, drivers would zip through the same way they do in E-ZPass express lanes, leaving all the work to a transponder attached to their car or a video camera that focuses on passing license plates.
Bills would then be sent to drivers’ homes. The cashless tolls could also save drivers from being stranded at endless stop-and-go toll-plaza lines – and save the MTA funds, officials said.
About 25 percent of drivers who use the MTA’s crossings use cash to pay tolls, according to internal statistics.
The agency’s Bridge and Tunnel division generates more toll revenue than any other such agency in the country, raking in $3.1 billion each year. About 850,000 drivers use the crossings each day.
It’s too early to say what kind of tolling will be looked at, MTA officials told the NY Post.
MTA board members are expected to approve a $1.5 million, yearlong study contract with Hackensack-based PBS&J Architecture at their Jan. 28 meeting.
The Port Authority also began looking into the speedy tolls for their six bridges and tunnels in 2007. Their project should be completed by 2012.
Cashless tolling is used in certain parts of California, Texas and Florida, and is a much bigger hit internationally, with the technology in place in Chile, Australia and Israel.
The MTA’s facilities include the RFK Bridge (formerly the Triborough Bridge), the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, the Queens-Midtown Tunnel and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.
(Source: NY Post)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
5 Responses
So the MTA will save how much?
And then the MTA will spend millions of dollars in sending out notices of payment which inlcudes paper, stamps, administrative fees, somebody e-maling everyone.
Such goyishe kups!
Maybe there will billing errors like Easy Pass is known for. I’d rather just pay cash up front and wait a bit if I have to.
do you realize how many hundreds of people would lose their jobs if this was put into effect?! we’re in a time period now wjere it is almost impossible to find jobs, this would require intervention and welfare and will end up costing the state way more money.
They already have this system in place all along the 407 ETR in Ontario. It works well MOST of the time.
To #1 – in Ontario they make you pay an administrative fee if you do not use the transponder. Back when I lived in Toronto it was approx $25(!!!). Kind of ensures that you use it.
I do remember a time when I got a bill in the mail (after I had moved back to the US) and realized I had not even been in Canada on the day of the alleged travel! I called them up, they looked up the picture of the car passing through, and were forced to admit that they had made an error.
Like I said, not foolproof. It is essentially a mandatory EZ Pass.
Ditch your eZ Pass, pay in cash,Make their life miserable,The cash payers are a thorn in their side,I NEVER had EZ pass, Never will, When you pay in cash , you feel how they are robbing you.