Commuters could soon pay $6 to cross the port authority’s four Delaware River bridges
The DRPA board has voted to defer scheduled toll increases six times since 2013 and officials say the authority needs more revenue.
Delaware River Port Authority board members are considering a 20% hike in tolls to cross the four bridges connecting New Jersey and Pennsylvania that it owns and operates, which would be the first increase since 2011 if enacted.
Bridge tolls for automobiles would have to rise to $6.75, up from the current $5, based on a 35% inflation rate over the ensuing years. A DRPA rule pegs toll increases to the Consumer Price Index.
But board members are proposing to adjust the increase to $6 for cars to reduce the impact on customers — if they vote to raise the toll, people familiar with the discussions said. Train fares on the PATCO commuter rail line are not due to go up, officials said.
The Delaware River Port Authority runs the Betsy Ross, Ben Franklin, Walt Whitman, and Commodore Barry Bridges, the most-used Delaware River crossings in the Philadelphia region.
“As stewards of these vital assets we must make fiscally responsible decisions to make certain that the bridges are safe from disasters like the one that occurred in Baltimore … and that the bridges are structurally sound for generations to come,” DRPA board chairman James D. Schultz said in a statement.
The authority has budgeted about $794 million over the next five years to upgrade bridge infrastructure and make public safety improvements, including license plate cameras for law enforcement and homeland security purposes.
Among the projects planned: a $54 million strengthening of the timber fenders that protect the Walt Whitman and Ben Franklin Bridges from collisions with ships as well as refurbishing the piers, the concrete pillars anchored in the riverbed that hold up the spans.
After the March 26 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, the DRPA hired an engineering firm to evaluate the in-water protection measures on the Commodore Barry and Betsy Ross Bridges spans.
“We’re not complacent,” DRPA CEO John Hanson told The Inquirer after the catastrophe.
A 95,000-ton container ship slammed into the base of the Key bridge, which did not appear to have protective collision barriers, in the middle of the night, sending six construction workers to their deaths.
An increase is on the table because officials anticipate other possible costs such as new federal safety regulations arising from the investigation into the Key Bridge collapse and the need to hire more police. Officials also want to preserve the authority’s credit rating, to avoid borrowing costs. DRPA has been paying down its debt dramatically in recent years.
In 2008, DRPA decided tolls had to be adjusted every two years based on inflation as measured in the CPI. It was intended to stabilize the authority’s finances and make increases regular and more moderate.
But after raising the toll to $5 in 2011, the board voted to defer all the other required increases. Meanwhile peer agencies such as the Delaware Memorial Bridge, the Pennsylvania and New Jersey Turnpikes and the Egg Harbor Plaza on the Atlantic City Expressway had increased their tolls.
By all accounts, the board and DRPA management cut operating expenses and avoided raising tolls during that time, when traffic counts were rising before the pandemic. Today, about 136,000 vehicles use the four bridges daily, around 94% of pre-pandemic traffic.
A vote on the proposal could come in August, depending on the board’s discussions.
Price increases, never popular, have at times been fraught for the DRPA.
Angry commuters protested in September 2008 when the automobile toll went to $4 from $3 and PATCO fares increased by 10%, for instance.
The economy was slipping into recession at the time and the port authority was under fire for spending $375 million over the previous decade on economic development projects unrelated to its core transportation mission.
Those projects included Lincoln Financial Field, the Kimmel Center, the National Constitution Center and a minor-league baseball stadium for the Camden Riversharks; the team is defunct and the stadium was razed long ago. DRPA also chipped in to help build the Union’s soccer stadium on the Chester waterfront, and the National Museum of American Jewish History near Independence Hall.
By 2020, the DRPA was prohibited from funding economic development projects, a reform measure it instituted after public outcry over that and other non-transportation spending.