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TAPPAN ZEE BRIDGE

New E-ZPass rules for TZB for some commuters

More than 3,400 NJ E-ZPass customers are currently on the Tappan Zee Bridge Commuter Plan, which charges $3 per trip.

Khurram Saeed
ksaeed@lohud.com
Drivers with NJ E-ZPass accounts will have to switch to New York E-ZPass to keep their Tappan Zee Bridge commuter plan, which offers a healthy discount.

E-ZPass isn't always so easy to understand.

Sometimes it's downright complicated, especially if you live in our region with its glut of toll roads, bridges and tunnels along with account-specific discounts.

The latest twist: The New York State Thruway Authority is now requiring drivers with New Jersey E-ZPass to sign up for a New York E-ZPass account if they want to keep their Tappan Zee Bridge Commuter Plan.

For those who don't, it will cost them an extra $35 a month — or $420 more a year — for the same 3-mile trip over the bridge. They would pay the standard Tappan Zee E-ZPass toll of $4.75 per trip compared to $3 under the discount plan and a cash toll of $5. The T.Z. commuter plan charges $60 a month in advance for up to 20 trips.

More than 3,400 N.J. E-ZPass account holders are affected by the change, which takes effect at the end of the billing cycle next month.

E-ZPass users with New York accounts do not need to take any action in order to keep receiving the commuter discount.

Anyone, regardless of where they live, can register for an E-ZPass account in New York or New Jersey. You can pick either one, and some people have accounts with both states. Connecticut doesn't have an E-ZPass center since it doesn't collect tolls; its residents have to go through another state to get a tag.

Decisions, decisions: Mitul Shah has used the T.Z. Bridge Commuter Plan for years. Each weekday, he drives 45 minutes from his Mahwah, New Jersey, home, through Rockland and Westchester, to Greenwich, Connecticut, where he works as a lawyer.

"The whole point of E-ZPass is convenience," Shah said. "It's to make things kind of seamless and here they've kind of put a fork in the road."

If Shah gives up his New Jersey account, he'll lose an E-ZPass discount on the New Jersey Turnpike, which comes in handy on weekends. But simple math tells him he needs to get a New York E-ZPass transponder.

"I commute everyday," he said. "The most valuable discount is going to be the Tappan Zee Bridge."

Shah is debating whether to stick with both states — he could keep the N.J. tag in his wife's minivan — but maintaining and funding two accounts and deciphering two monthly statements may not be worth the effort.

"It's so confusing," he said. "What works?"

About 80 percent of Tappan Zee Bridge tolls are collected through E-ZPass, the highest percentage of any location on the Thruway. More toll plazas are going to cashless.

New York state of mind: The Thruway Authority said having all Tappan Zee commuter plan holders working directly with the N.Y. E-ZPass service center will make it easier to answer customers' questions and address their concerns.

Thruway Authority spokeswoman Jennifer Givner said in a statement that the change was unrelated to the impending changeover to all-electronic toll collection on the Tappan Zee Bridge in the spring.

With a $4 billion twin crossing set to replace the 60-year-old Tappan Zee Bridge in a few years, tolls will increase to pay for it. The Thruway Authority said a toll hike won't happen next year on the bridge or 570-mile Thruway and maintains it hasn't determined how high T.Z. tolls will rise.

Tappan Zee commuter plan users aren't the only ones affected by the Thruway's decision.

New Jersey E-ZPass users registered for the Tappan Zee Carpool Plan and the NY12 Annual Permit Plan must also switch to keep their discounts. Those plans have far fewer users, 784 and 453, respectively.

Tom Feeney, spokesman for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, which oversees E-ZPass in the Garden State, said the decision was New York's alone.

"The reason we're doing it is because they asked us to," Feeney said.

New Jersey offers its E-ZPass users in passenger cars different toll rates on the New Jersey Turnpike during off-peak hours on weekdays. The peak hours are 7 to 9 a.m. and 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. and the entire weekend. All other hours are considered off-peak.

The off-peak discounts amount to "about 33 percent over the cash rate," Feeney said in an email.

A toll gantry has been built over the New York State Thruway in South Nyack. Tolls for the Tappan Zee Bridge will be collected electronically when this gantry is put into use in the spring.

A complex environment: There are nearly 17 million E-ZPass accounts and more than 28 million transponders in circulation, according to the E-ZPass Group, an association of 27 tolling agencies in 16 states, stretching from Maine to Illinois and south to North Carolina.

More 2.7 billion E-ZPass transactions took place in 2014, some two decades after the electronic prepayment service launched.

P.J. Wilkins, executive director of the E-ZPass Group, said there were a lot of general discounts when the system first started but now "more and more agencies are doing customer specific toll discount plans" to give them a better understanding of their user base. Other than basic information like license plate numbers, the tolling agencies don't share their customer information, he said.

"It's a very complex environment," Wilkins said.

Locally, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and New York State Bridge Authority are part of the E-ZPass New York Customer Service Center along with the Thruway Authority, among others. New York E-ZPass tag holders are eligible for toll discounts on any of their facilities.

Still, E-ZPass policies vary from agency to agency.

When it comes to MTA tunnels and bridges only New York E-ZPass customers get the lower toll rates. Cars with local E-ZPass units pay $2.54 to cross the Henry Hudson Bridge as opposed to $5.50 toll sent by mail (the bridge does not have a cash option). On the Throgs Neck Bridge, which connects the Bronx with Queens, local E-ZPass users fork over $5.54 instead of $8 cash.

On the other hand, the Port Authority applies general discounts to all E-ZPass users in good standing, regardless of the state where their E-ZPass was issued. So anyone with E-ZPass crossing the Port Authority's George Washington Bridge would save $2.50 during peak hours, or 17 percent off the recently-increased $15 cash toll. The off-peak E-ZPass toll costs $10.50, representing a 30 percent savings from the cash rate.

However, there are some Port Authority plans with deeper discounts, such as the carpool plan, which is only for New York and New Jersey E-ZPass users.

Got all that?

It's not that E-Z to keep it straight.

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Twitter: @ksaeed1