The Port Authority will be stuffing its coffers with holiday travelers’ cash.
New Yorkers heading home from the Thanksgiving weekend are going to get roasted when they try to cross the PA’s bridges and tunnels, as a rate hike is scheduled to go into effect on Sunday, Dec. 1.
E-ZPass tolls on the George Washington Bridge, Lincoln Tunnel, and Holland Tunnel will increase by 75 cents to $11 during peak hours. Off-peak, they will increase from $8.25 to $9.
The hike will gobble the maximum dough from drivers’ wallets because Dec. 1 is when the largest percentage of Thanksgiving travelers will be going home, or 33 percent nationally, according to AAA.
“The trip home from Grandma’s might lead to indigestion for many drivers as the Port Authority’s toll hikes take effect just in time to spoil the end of the holiday weekend,” said AAA spokesman Robert Sinclair Jr.
A Port Authority source said tolls hikes are scheduled for the first Sunday of December each year and it is only a coincidence that this year the increase date is such a big travel day.
Nevertheless, the timing of the hike had drivers fuming Wednesday.
“I think it’s overkill,” said Michele Roman, 45, who was planning to head from Manhattan to New Jersey and back over the holiday. “It’s horrible because so many people are struggling enough already. It’s not going to be a good holiday.”
Randy Jones, 47, of Washington Heights also blasted the PA on the hike.
“Hell no! I don’t think it’s fair to raise it,” he said. “But if you’re going to raise it, that’s a good day. A lot of people travel at that time, they’re going to make a lot of money.”
Raza Ali, 26, a wedding decorator from Rego Park, Queens, wishes they would delay the hike.
“You don’t want to go through that,” she said. “Especially with a holiday, where you’re spending a lot of money as it is.”
Revelers won’t be the only ones to feel the pinch. Truckers whose vehicles have six axles will pay $84 in peak hours, up from $72. Trucks with four axles will pay $56, up from $48, during peak times.
About the only good news is that the cash toll rate for car drivers is staying the same, $13.
The increase is the third of five toll hikes that began in 2011, and end in 2015.
AAA filed a lawsuit against the Port Authority in 2011, arguing that the hikes are unreasonable, and is supporting legislation in Congress to bring back federal oversight of interstate tolls, which ended in 1987.
Slightly more than 2.6 million New Yorkers are traveling over Thanksgiving, and almost 90 percent are driving.