CAMDEN, NJ (KYW Newsradio) — It'll cost drivers $1 more to cross the four Delaware Port Authority bridges effective Aug. 1, under a plan green-lit by a Delaware River Port Authority committee.
It would be the DRPA's first toll increase since 2011.
Tolls on the Ben Franklin, Walt Whitman, Commodore Barry and Betsy Ross bridges would go from $5 to $6 under a resolution approved Wednesday by the DRPA board's finance committee.
"Whenever we make decisions regarding tolls, we have to do them through the lens of fiscal responsibility, and most importantly, safety," said DRPA Board Chair James Schultz, who attended the meeting remotely.
Technically, the committee approved a resolution to reduce an inflation-based increase that would have raised tolls to $6.75.
"Our projections show that we can do it at this level, and there's no reason to take more from the toll payers at this time," DRPA CEO John Hanson told KYW Newsradio in an interview.
Hanson said the increase would generate $55 to $60 million a year to maintain the bridges, including shoring up the fenders that keep ships from colliding with the Ben Franklin and Walt Whitman bridges, and a redecking of the Commodore Barry bridge.
"It is the money that we need to keep the bridges safe. To keep the bridges and train line serviceable, to keep them secure," Hanson said.
The authority, he continued, has a duty to maintain its aging infrastructure.
"The Ben Franklin Bridge is 98 years old. It's going to be 100 in 2026. And the youngest of our bridges was built in 1976, so we've got a lot of work to do," Hanson said.
The increase would also fund an effort to hire more DRPA police officers.
"We have 120 cops. We have capacity for 150," Schultz said. "We have to pay police officers commensurate in the way it's competitive with other departments. And, in order to do that, it's going to factor into the decisions that we make."
PATCO fares would not go up under the plan, which gets a final board vote July 17.