Here's a bill we got last month.
The state has the new no-tollbooth plan called Tolls By Mail, where instead of tollbooths with human beings we get our license plate photographed and a bill for the toll sent by mail. This makes it easier to go over bridges like the Verrazano-Narrows without worrying if you have enough money on you, but also easy to rack up a huge monthly bill for all those $19 tolls. Even E-ZPass will keep you honest by alerting you when your account runs low. With about 20 workdays in a month, if the V-Z was part of your commute, the MTA could skin you for $380 before you knew it.
Well, we only went one Thruway exit to see the doctor, thus the whopping $1.25 toll. We seldom go far these days. Not too many people do. I don't know how the bridges will keep afloat. But that's their problem.
I paid the bill online -- the stamp and the physical check would have cost about half the total of the bill, but I almost wrote a check just to annoy everybody. It would have been the smallest check I ever wrote.
I shouldn't complain. The Tolls By Mail system is faster while driving -- although the inconvenience comes on our side, not the government's, which is how they like it. It must have meant the dismissal or early retirement for many tollbooth operators. Then again, not handing around cash may mean we've avoided spreading COVID-19 even farther than we have. So I guess I ought to look on the bright side.
One thing, though, about the New York government using technology: They always say it will save money, and yet somehow the taxes and tolls never go down.
I should note that this invoice informed us that we could have saved six cents on this toll with E-ZPass. The irony is, I have E-ZPass on my car, but we took my wife's. Oh well, there goes that trip to Fiji we were planning.
3 comments:
Virginia has a similar program for bridges and tunnels in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area. We go to that area once or twice a year, and several weeks after each trip get a mailed invoice for something like $5. I can't fathom how they make any money after the costs involved in photography, data collection/retention, programming, envelopes, paper, postage, credit card fees, etc. It probably cost the Commonwealth $8 to collect the $5.
If you already have E-ZPass, you can get free transponders for additional cars. Although when I first tried to do this, I added a car to my E-ZPass account without actually ordering a transponder. In just a few days I received an envelope in the mail containing nothing but two Velcro strips (not even a letter of explanation). If I remember correctly, the postage marked on the envelope was 52 cents.
Here CA you can get I think three transponders for your account but also attach additional plate numbers so they will get billed directly to your account which bills a credit card. All pretty easy.
I only hit the bridges about a dozen times a year, but it is worth it.
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