Your cash will be no good here in roughly one year.
Moving to cashless all electronic toll collection on the state’s three toll roads took a major step forward Wednesday when the South Jersey Transportation Authority awarded a $30.59 million contract to begin construction of an all-electronic toll collection system on the Atlantic City Expressway, a design that could be used on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway.
The seven authority commissioners voted to award the contract to South State, Inc. of Bridgeton to construct the all-electronic toll collection system designed by TransCore LP of Nashville.
The 47-mile expressway is the first of the state’s three major toll highways that is switching to all-electronic toll collection. Roughly 3.7 million toll paying vehicles used the expressway in April, said Stephen F. Dougherty, South Jersey Transportation Authority executive director.
South State had the lowest bid of five companies that submitted bids last month to construct overhead toll gantries in 11 locations on the Atlantic City Expressway that will support cashless toll collection equipment and then demolish existing toll plazas.
Last September, the authority awarded a $159 million contract to TransCore LP of Nashville to design, build, maintain and operate an all-electronic toll collection system. That design could be used on the Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike.
The current all-electronic toll schedule has a “go live” date of May 2025, but that could be adjusted, officials said. South Jersey Transportation Authority officials had said they wanted cashless tolling to coincide with the Memorial Day 2025 weekend, which is the traditional start of the summer season.
The metal gantries will look similar to the steel structures seen on the Parkway that support overhead road and video messaging signs, according to bid documents. Gantry structures also will support toll readers and cameras, in addition to signs.
Those gantries also will be constructed to leave space for an additional lane for a proposed project to widen a two-lane, 13-mile section of the Atlantic City Expressway by adding a third lane in both directions along the center median from Winslow Township to the Route 42 terminus in Gloucester Township, Camden County. That $180 million project is in the design phase.
Once the switch is flipped to activate cashless tolling, what drivers will experience is similar to what motorists do at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s bridges and tunnels — continue driving and don’t stop to pay tolls. Signs posted at the now-closed toll booths at the Lincoln Tunnel, the last to go cashless, tell drivers to do that.
While most toll payers in New Jersey and on the expressway have E-ZPass accounts, cash customers will see the biggest change. A photo will be taken of their vehicle as it passes under the toll gantry, and a bill for the toll will be sent to the registered owner.
The 88% of expressway drivers who use E-Zpass will see no change.
Implementing all-electronic, cashless toll collection was one of the projects included in the A.C. Expressway’s and New Jersey Turnpike Authority’s capital plans that were funded by a toll increase on the three toll highways that took effect on Sept. 13, 2020. The toll collection project is funded through the South Jersey Transportation Authority’s $500 million capital plan.
The Turnpike Authority would have the option to piggyback on the expressway contract when it comes time to switch to all-electronic tolls on the Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike, officials of that authority said in earlier interviews.
Cashless toll collection was temporarily used by state and regional toll agencies during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, starting in March 2020, to reduce the handling of cash and potential spread of COVID-19, on the expressway, parkway and turnpike. But the state’s three major toll roads returned to cash toll collection in May 2020.
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
Larry Higgs may be reached at [email protected].