AAA Files Suit Against N.Y.-N.J. Authority; Claims Bridge, Tunnel Toll Hikes Are Illegal

AAA has filed a lawsuit to reverse recent toll increases on bridges and tunnels connecting New York City to New Jersey and to stop future planned increases as well.

The lawsuit, filed late last month in federal court in New York City, takes issue with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s plan to use the toll revenue for the World Trade Center redevelopment project in Manhattan.

“They have stated that the moneys, almost in total . . . would be used for redevelopment of the World Trade Center site,” Robert Sinclair, spokesman for AAA’s New York chapter, told Transport Topics. “Not a transportation-related facility.”

AAA contends that using the money for purposes not related to transportation violates federal law.

Truck tolls on all bridges and tunnels increased by $2 per axle in September, and the authority assesses a $3-per-axle surcharge for using cash instead of E-ZPass.

Tolls are set to increase another $2 per year from December 2012 until 2015 under the plan set by the Port Authority in August.

By 2012, a 5-axle truck that uses E-ZPass during peak hours will pay $90 to cross — a 125% increase over the $40 paid before the increases. That truck will pay $85 during nonpeak hours (8-29, p. 3).

AAA is seeking to reverse the September increase and stop the future increases, Sinclair said.

The Port Authority said in a statement that it has reviewed the AAA complaint and “it is without merit.”

New Jersey’s trucking association supports AAA’s efforts.

“We’re very happy they filed and look forward to seeing where they head with this,” said Gail Toth, executive director of the New Jersey Motor Truck Association.

NJMTA is considering filing a brief in support of AAA, likely in conjunction with the New York State Motor Truck Association and American Trucking Associations, Toth said. The groups previously sought to convince the Port Authority to reverse the toll increases and later urged the New York and New Jersey governors to veto the plan.

Sinclair told TT that AAA’s complaint uses a precedent from a 1989 court decision regarding 1987 toll increases.

“The court ruled that the [Port Authority Trans-Hudson commuter train], as a transportation facility, had a close and functional relationship to bridges and tunnels,” he said. “So, tolls from the toll hike back then could be used, because it was a transportation-related facility.”

But the World Trade Center is not transportation-related, Sinclair said. The Port Authority has not specifically said that the new money will go to the project, but AAA claimed it will.

“The net expenditures [for the World Trade Center project] far, far exceed any of those other facilities. The nontransportation-related facility is getting, by far, the bulk of their net expenditures,” Sinclair said. “They’re in essence admitting that they’re going to misuse the money.”

AAA’s lawsuit also cites a 1906 law that tolls on facilities connecting states must be “reasonable and just,” Sinclair said.

But the regulations that provided enforcement for that law were repealed in the 1980s, Toth said.

NJMTA, ATA and the Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association found that out when they lost a lawsuit to stop an increase in tolls to cross the Delaware River between those states in 2005 (2-14-05, p. 3).

“While the judge really thought that we were being ripped off, he had no ability to give us any relief,” Toth said.

U.S. District Judge Ronald Buckwater ruled in that case that there was no enforcement mechanism for private parties to sue and that there was no precedent for the court to determine if the tolls were justified.