It’s about to get a lot less E-Z on the wallets of bridge-and-tunnel toll beaters.
Fines will soon double for motorists who blast through E-ZPass lanes at Port Authority crossings between New York and New Jersey with no payment tags or with insufficient funds in their accounts.
The PA this week approved a hike in scofflaw penalties from $25 to $50, effective Nov. 15.
It’s the first fee change for toll evasion since E-ZPass was installed on PA crossings in 1997.
The agency raked in a whopping $6.5 million in fines last year, and now expects to double that in the coming year, said spokesman Ron Marsico.
Drivers had mixed reviews of the soaring penalties. Some said the toll-skippers deserved the new fine, while others said it was another way for government to nickel-and-dime them during hard times.
“I think it’s ridiculous. It’s not fair in these tough times to fine people so much,” said Manhattanite Chris Lam, who was entering the Lincoln Tunnel yesterday.
Lori West, 47, of New Jersey, disagreed.
“I think if you don’t pay the tolls, you should be fined,” she said, “because people who don’t pay the toll make it more expensive for people like me who do the right thing.”
Officials hope the rising fines will convince more people to sign up for E-ZPass.
Many of the 6,500 toll-evasion penalties doled out daily “are attributable to cash-paying customers,” Marsico said. “They either got trapped in the wrong lane or are trying to beat snarled traffic.
“This is to provide them an incentive to open an E-ZPass account — it’ll reduce the number of violations and reduce delays at the toll plazas,” he said.
Bumbling drivers who mistakenly pull into E-ZPass lanes without windshield-mounted tags sometimes try to back out and move into cash lanes, causing further delays, Marsico said.
Drivers aren’t charged the fine after their first toll-evasion violation as long as they pay the required toll within 15 days — though the fine kicks in every time after.
About 325,000 drivers daily go through E-ZPass lanes on PA crossings.
They include the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the George Washington Bridge between Manhattan and New Jersey, and the Bayonne and Goethals bridges and the Outerbridge Crossing between Staten Island and Jersey.