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Drivers better get used to digging deeper into their wallets — they’ll be doing it over and over again for the next four years.
Port Authority cash tolls will hit the $12 mark next month — up $4 from the current price — before embarking on a climb that’ll see them hit a dashboard-punching $15 by 2015.
The shocking hikes are part of an 11th-hour deal engineered by Gov. Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, which kills a widely reviled PA proposal and replaces it with slightly smaller hikes that will steadily bleed drivers over four years.
EDITORIAL: THE TOLL-HIKE DANCE
The new levies slam cash-paying drivers, with the blow somewhat softened on those using electronic payments.
Come September, E-ZPass drivers will fork over $7.50 off-peak and $9.50 peak on the agency’s six bridges and tunnels, up from $6 and $8, respectively.
Drivers dealing out greenbacks, who now pay $8, will pay $12 at all times. That includes the $1.50 hike that the E-ZPasses got, as well as service fees for paying cash.
In the not too distant future, drivers will look at next month’s hikes as a bargain.
Every year up to and including 2015, E-ZPass tolls will increase by 75 cents.
So will cash tolls.
But drivers paying cash will get hit even harder, because the 75-cent increase will be added to the regular $2 surcharge — and then rounded up to the nearest dollar figure. There won’t be any rounding down.
In 2015, drivers making electronic payments will shell out $10.50 off-peak and $12.50 during rush hours.
Cash tolls, meanwhile, will reach $15 that year.
PATH train riders aren’t off the hook. Their fares are being raised from $1.75 to $2 next month and increasing by 25 cents each year up to 2015.
The PA’s board is expected to approve the deal — hammered out by Cuomo and Christie personally — today at 9 a.m.
The governors — who raged at the plan initially put forth by the PA — have agreed not to veto the new fare-hike proposal.
Both governors are also demanding an overhaul of how the bloated agency does business — including a full audit of its books.
“The reports of cost overruns, excessive overtime, and exorbitant spending must stop immediately,” the governors said in a joint letter announcing the hikes.
“We will assure that ever toll dollar is well spent and waste and abuse is immediately attacked.”
The agency said it needs the money because of the price tag on rebuilding the World Trade Center, which The Post has reported is $2 billion over budget.
The deal comes after days of frantic behind-the-scenes wrangling.
Christie and Cuomo both felt the initial plan would bring in more cash than the PA actually needed, according to a source.
The hikes will also take a toll on jobs.
APL Limited, a multinational shipping line based on Staten Island, decided not to renew its lease in Howland Hook in part over the toll hikes, said Jim Devine, president of New York Container Terminals.
Even before the increase, another shipping line left because tolls were already so high.
“If we don’t get relief from the tolls, my ability to replace APL will be nonexistent,” Devine said. “It will, over time, kill jobs.”
Additional reporting by Fredric U. Dicker and Josh Margolin