Cuomo: All MTA Bridges to Be Cashless by End of 2017

NEW YORK (AP/Hamodia) —
At the press conference announcing that MTA bridges and tolls will become a cashless system. L-R: Bill Murrow, Secretary to Governor Andrew M. Cuomo; Gov. Cuomo; Tom Prendergast, Chairman of the MTA; Superintendent George Beach, New York State Police. (Office of Gov. Cuomo)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo says “cashless” automated tolls booths on all MTA-operated bridges and tunnels in the New York metropolitan region will be completed by the end of 2017.

The effort is part of the Democratic governor’s “New York Crossings Project,” which will also include color LED illumination of bridges and driver facial recognition cameras for tighter security.

Cuomo said Wednesday that automatic tolling will begin at the Hugh L. Carey and Queens Midtown tunnels next month. Rockaway bridges will be completed in the Spring and the RFK and Verrazano-Narrows bridges will be ready by the summer. Fall should see the completion of the Throgs Neck and Bronx-Whitestone bridges.

Open-road tolling will feature sensors and cameras suspended over the highway on structures called “gantries” that read E-ZPass tags and take license-plate images. Vehicles with E-ZPass tags will be charged automatically. Vehicles without E-Z pass will have their license plates recorded, and a bill will be mailed to the registered owner of each vehicle every 30 days. Customers who pay tolls by mail will pay the same rate as that previously paid by cash customers; E-ZPass customers with New York Service Center tags will continue to get a discount of at least 30 percent.

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