Urge officials to block elimination of E-ZPass discounts

The New Jersey Turnpike Authority is at it again. Remember, this is the same organization that has been criticized in the past concerning toll collectors earning more than $100,000 per year, higher-ups earning upwards of $250,000 plus huge fringe benefits, politically appointed jobs, and of course, the overuse of giving out government vehicles.

What about the excessive waste of our toll dollars on unneeded road repairs? Look at how many years the same contractor has been working between exits 13 and 14. Yet the jam between exits 8A and 8 has never been addressed, even though the population is moving south to Jackson and beyond, and the road has never been widened from Exit 8A to at least Exit 7A to make travel safer and easier. It is a nightmare to travel south from Exit 9 because the road goes from six lanes to five, then to three lanes.

Didn’t former Gov. James McGreevey combine the Garden State Parkway Authority with the NJTA to save toll dollars for taxpayers?

Then, remember the E-ZPass mess. The NJTA used a pay-to-play contractor, overpaid the company, and then could not get the system to work. It then cost another $200 million for another company just to straighten out the mistakes made by the first company. This brought the cost for the E-ZPass system to well over $800 million of our hard-earned toll money, much more than the amounts paid by Delaware, New York and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Authority.

If not for pay-to-play, our E-ZPass system would never have cost anywhere near what it did, and it would have worked perfectly much sooner. The reason for the E-ZPass system was to make toll collection much faster, to move traffic faster, and to lower the cost of tolls for New Jersey citizens, most of whom commute to work five-six days a week.

More than a year ago, the discount on the parkway was taken away during the rush hours and weekends, when most New Jersey citizens use these roads. Now the NJTA wants to do the same on the New Jersey Turnpike. The tolls are already some of the highest per mile compared to most toll roads throughout the United States.

It is time for Chris Christie, the federal prosecutor, to investigate the workings of the NJTA. I ask all New Jersey residents to call and write Gov. Richard Codey and all your representatives and urge them to stop the waste at the NJTA, clean up the agency and cut costs as well as the tolls, and to block the elimination of toll discounts for using E-ZPass.

Mark Klein

Monroe