N.J. Turnpike, Parkway Users Face Toll Increase Jan. 1 in Corzine Legacy

Toll increases of as much as 53 percent, a boost set when Jon Corzine was governor, will start Jan. 1 on the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike, two of the busiest roads in the U.S.

The rate for passenger vehicles traveling the Turnpike’s length during peak traffic hours will be as much as $13.85 in cash, up from $9.05 currently. The maximum charge for tractor- trailer rigs with six or more axles also will rise 53 percent, to $56.85.

The rates were approved in 2008 under Corzine, a Democrat. Republican Governor Chris Christie, who defeated Corzine in 2009, said the tolls are impossible to roll back because the state sold bonds based on the anticipated revenue.

“This is the last, I hope, one of the last vestiges of Jon Corzine’s fiscal management of the state of New Jersey (STONJ1),” Christie, 49, told WOR-AM radio’s John Gambling today.

Last year, more than 235 million vehicles used the Turnpike, part of Interstate 95 running 148 miles (238 kilometers) from the Delaware River to New York. Off-peak rates for cars traveling the length of the road will rise to $10.40, according to the New Jersey Turnpike Authority’s website.

Tolls for cars on the 173-mile Parkway, the gateway to Atlantic Ocean beach resorts and a feeder to secondary highways, will rise as much as 50 percent. The road from Cape May to Montvale, New Jersey, on the New York state line west of the Hudson River, carried more than 433 million vehicles in 2010. The turnpike authority (26526MF), which operates the highways, describes both as among the busiest in the U.S.

MF Global CEO

Corzine, 64, became chairman and chief executive officer of MF Global Holdings Ltd. (MFGLQ) a few months after leaving office. The brokerage became the eighth-largest U.S. bankruptcy Oct. 31 after a wrong-way trade on European sovereign debt. Corzine, testifying before Congress earlier this month, said he didn’t know what became of about $1.2 billion in client funds.

Commuters, including those who ride rails and buses, also will face a different sort of cost increase beginning Jan. 1, unless Congress renews an income-tax credit for commuting costs of as much as $230 a month. The maximum amount is scheduled to drop to $125 a month because of expiring federal legislation.

To contact the reporter on this story: Elise Young in Trenton, New Jersey, at eyoung30@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Tannenbaum at mtannen@bloomberg.net

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