Tolls To Increase On New Jersey Turnpike, Garden State Parkway

NEW JERSEY — Perhaps 2022 will be better than this year and the last. But in New Jersey, it will come with a hike in tolls.

The state will raise rates by 3 percent starting Jan. 1 on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway. Officials say the increase is necessary to provide stable funding for capital needs.

Tolls last increased Sept. 13, 2020 — by 37 percent on the Atlantic City Expressway, 36 percent on the Turnpike and 27 percent on the Parkway. The state instituted the 2020 hikes to fund a 10-year, $24 billion capital plan on the Parkway and Turnpike and a $500 million plan for the Expressway.

The 2020 hikes changed how future toll hikes are instituted, beginning an annual process allowing yearly increase up to 3 percent — based on certain economic indicators — starting in 2022. The 2020 hikes were the first on the Turnpike and Parkway since 2012.

When the plan was approved in May 2020, the Turnpike Authority's revenue dropped 60 percent, with many staying at home during New Jersey's initial coronavirus breakout. The new toll increases are part of 2022's budget, which projects that traffic will return to 97 percent of its pre-pandemic levels. In the projection comes to fruition, the hiked tolls would increase revenue 7.6 percent next year.

The agency's budget cites a 7.9 percent increase in operating expenses driven by increases in State Police salaries and pensions, jumps in premiums related to cyber insurance and E-ZPass cost escalations that coincide with a 5 percent bump in traffic. The budget calls for no major hiring beyond its 2,128 employees.

Some lawmakers have blasted the toll increases. State Senator Christopher Connors and Assembly Members Brian Rumpf and DiAnne Gove made the following joint statement:

“Commuters cannot afford to pay higher tolls at a time when prices are increasing for consumer goods across the board. Businesses in the state which are trying to remain competitive with other tax-friendly states will have yet another cost increase imposed by Trenton to contend with, making it that much harder to be profitable."