NJ E-ZPass Shock: Your Transponder May Not Give You a Discount

If you have E-ZPass, when you drive to another state that also uses the toll collection system, you would probably assume you will get the E-ZPass discount when you make your trip.

It turns out however that is not necessarily the case.

For that reason Assemblyman John McKeon, D-Morris, sponsored a bill that was just signed into law requiring the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, the lead agency for E-ZPass in the Garden State, to let customers and prospective customers know online if they travel to locations outside of Jersey, they may not get the E-ZPass discount.

He says it's consumer fraud

He said if he goes from New Jersey over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge into New York, he can use the E-ZPass lane because he has a transponder. But “since it generated in New Jersey, I pay the same as a cash customer, so this is really, in my view, consumer fraud.”

He pointed out that if you use a Port Authority crossing into New York City you will get the E-ZPass discount, “but places run for example, like the Verrazano Narrows Bridge by the New York Transportation Authority, or other states like Maryland, Delaware or otherwise, we don’t get that discount.”

He said in New York State there were 30 million transactions last year involving E-ZPass customers with transponders from other states who wound up paying the cash price for their trip instead of getting the E-ZPass discount.

What's the real cost?

That means someone with a New Jersey E-ZPass pays $17 to cross the Verrazano Bridge compared to the discounted E-ZPass rate of $11.52.

McKeon said his legislation, signed into law by the governor on March 13, was supported by Democrats and Republicans.