Imagining a Shore Trip Without Tollbooths
By DAN STAMM
Updated 5:58 AM EST, Wed, Jul 1, 2009
You might not need to fork over any money on your way down the Jersey Shore.
The traditional toll taker might no longer exist along the Atlantic City Expressway. The commission that runs the Expressway was studying making the toll road cash-free.
Drivers would still have to pay the tolls -- currently $6 per round trip. But, they would hand over no actual money -- it wouldn’t even be an option.
Motorists would use E-ZPass, which 60 percent already do. If they don't have E-ZPass, monthly bills would be sent to the address linked to the license plate. The bills would be 10 percent higher than the E-ZPass cost.
The hope was that eliminating tollbooths would help to alleviate traffic along the busy shore route.
Some drivers were all about the toll-free road.
"I'm all for it, double in spades. It definitely will expedite traffic," Mark Rubin of Cherry Hill, N.J. told the Courier Post.
"You gotta be insane not to have E-ZPass around here. It's convenient, offers discounts to some. I challenge you to find anybody who wouldn't welcome it," Rubin, who commutes regularly to Margate, continued.
But there are some concerns.
"The downside to these electronic tolls is you never know what you're paying. Just maybe, they're too convenient," said Collingswood, N.J. dentist Thomas Hohnhold.
The South Jersey Transportation Authority was awaiting the results of a study on the proposal in the fall.
The A.C. Expressway wouldn’t be the first expressway to go cash-free. A similar length of I-470 around the eastern half of Denver will go cashless this weekend, according to the Denver Biz Journal.
For now feel free to use cash on the A.C. Expressway but expect to wait in those dreaded tollbooth back-ups.
Copyright Associated Press / NBC Philadelphia
First Published: Jun 30, 2009 3:24 PM EST
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