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CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) ― It's the one thing guaranteed to follow a proposed toll hike: Commuter complaints. But since toll hikes are sometimes needed to keep up key parts of the nation's infrastructure, officials are increasingly turning to a new strategy to lessen the public outcry by making them less noticeable.

To do that, a small but growing number of toll and transit agencies across the country are moving away from steep toll hikes every several years and toward smaller but more frequent increases.

"It would have been the grail of most agencies over the last 20 to 30 years," said Neil Gray, the director of government affairs for the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association.
Inflation-based automatic increases are being implemented by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the North Texas Turnpike Authority, the for-profit operator of a Chicago toll road and a California transit agency.

One is scheduled to begin in two years for the Pennsylvania Turnpike and lawmakers in Florida are requiring the turnpike agency there to go the same course. New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority is also considering moving to a similar plan.

The Delaware River Port Authority, which is currently taking flak over its proposal to hike bridge tolls between Philadelphia and New Jersey from $3 to $4 in September and to $5 in 2010, wants to move to automatic toll hikes every other year, based on inflation, starting in 2013. The increase would be rounded to the nearest quarter. The agency's PATCO Speedline commuter train service would see similar automatic increases beginning in 2013.

The DRPA last increased its tolls on its four bridges in 2000 when the price of crossing a bridge went from $2 to $3. But officials say the DRPA has stretched its last toll increase as far as it could, and can't ignore pressing needs.

John Hanson, the DRPA's chief financial officer, said he's heard from commuters that they would rather see tolls and fares go up by smaller amounts more often than taking big jumps every several years.

"If smaller, incremental toll increases are what the public wants, it is a lot more likely to happen if you make them automatic than if you try to get a board to vote on them every year or every other year," Hanson said. He noted that under the plan, the DRPA could decide that an increase is not needed when it is due.

New toll technology is making inflation-related increases a bit easier to pull off. As more and more drivers use electronic transponders to pay their tolls, it becomes easier to increase tolls by odd amounts, instead of round figures that make cash payments easier.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey plans on raising tolls on its bridges and tunnels every year once it can implement a totally cashless toll system.

The automatic increases are aimed not only at making the increases easier on budgets, but also at making them less subject to changing politics.

Still, some say there is an upside to holding public hearings and listening to complaints about toll increase. Catherine Rossi, a spokeswoman for the AAA in Pennsylvania and Delaware, said it can keep an agency honest.

"We think that we can't just write a blank check for toll increases," she said.

At a public hearing on the proposed hike last month, Anne Marie Stolfo, a Bellmawr resident, went even farther than that. "If these bridges belong to us," she said, "put the question of toll hikes on the ballot and let us decide."

The toll and fare indexing idea is still fairly new; only a handful of agencies have used it to raise prices already.

One that has is Bay Area Rapid Transit, the subway system in the San Francisco area. It put one into place in 2003. Fares were to rise every other Jan. 1 between 2006 and 2012 by an amount derived from the local inflation rate.

Ticket prices went up 5.4 percent on Jan. 1. BART spokeswoman Luna Salaver said riders weren't complaining as much about the higher prices, but were still voicing their opinions.

Now, she said, they're asking when they will have cleaner cars and better service to show for it.

(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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