The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission voted this week to ease the burden that a more than 400% toll hike would have put on trucks crossing the commission's seven toll bridges in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

As of Nov. 30, five-axle trucks will face a 280% increase, according to a story in the Pennsylvania Express-Times. The full increase won't take effect until January of 2004, the bi-state toll bridge agency ruled.
"It means nothing," said Ted Scott of Roadway Express, an international trucking company with a service center in Bethlehem and a distribution center in Stroudsburg. "I can't understand how anybody can expect to raise tolls by almost 300% and get away with it."
The American Trucking Assns., Roadway Express and other large trucking operations plan to sue the commission this month, Scott said.
"I'm not pleased," he said. "I think we will see them in court."
The phased-in increase affects the Interstate 78 bridge in Williams Township, the Route 22 bridge connecting Easton and Phillipsburg, the Interstate 80 bridge at the Delaware Water Gap, the bridge connecting Route 46 in Columbia to Route 611 in Portland and the Millford-Montague bridge.
Crossing any of those five bridges will cost five-axle trucks $4 today. The same trip will cost trucks $11.25 after 11 p.m. Nov. 30. The price will jump to $16.25 after January 2004.
A year ago, the commission decided to phase in increases on the Trenton-Morrisville and New Hope-Lambertville bridges where truck tolls today cost $2.50 and $1.25, respectively.
Cars crossing the Interstate 78 and Route 22 bridges will pay $1 after Nov. 30. The car toll now is 50 cents. The new car and truck rates will fund a 10-year, $526-million capital improvement plan.
Linda Spalinski, director of strategic planning and community affairs for the toll bridge commission, said complaints from the trucking industry prompted Monday's decision to enact the two-step increase.
"The commission has heard from representatives from trucking companies about the impact of the revised toll structure on their businesses," she said. "The decision was made to mitigate the impact of the increase on all bridges."
But truckers say the proposed increases are still too expensive.
"I have never seen a toll increase like this in my 30 years in the industry," said Jim Runk, president of the Pennsylvania Motor Truck Assn.
The first phase of the hike will cost Billig Trucking Inc. of Allentown thousands of dollars every year, company president David Billig said.
"It's too much too fast, still," Billig said. "We don't mind increases, but we want them to be reasonable with it."
The nature of the trucking industry won't allow companies to pass the increase onto the consumer easily, Billig said.
"If I don't haul the load across, my competitor will," Billig said. "The competition keeps our rates down. So we have to absorb that increase."
Tractor-trailers from Gary W. Gray Trucking Inc. in Knowlton Township, N.J., cross Interstate 78 and Route 22 bridges 130 times a day, Carol Gray said.
"This will definitely push us into the red," she said.
The 31-year-old company negotiated contracts with private companies and state agencies based on the current rates. Gray officials will inevitably lose money due to the "devastating" toll increases, Gray said.
Roadway Express may have to move to avoid the costly tolls, Scott said. Closing a facility -- such as the center in Stroudsburg where 1,000 people earn a total of $50 million in salaries -- could cause a regional economic downturn.
In the first phase, the company expects to pay more than $500,000 more in tolls, Scott said.
"We will do everything we can to reduce our cost to our customers. But at the end of the day, we've got to pass the toll increase along. Potentially what that means is that we could find ourselves in a competitive disadvantage with companies that don't have to use those bridges," Scott said.
Five commissioners each from New Jersey and Pennsylvania sit on the DRJTBC which oversees seven toll and 13 free bridges over the Delaware River from Trenton to the New York border. Commissioners voted 9-1 in favor of the two-step increase. Jack Muehlhan Jr. of Pennsylvania cast the sole dissenting vote.
"[Monday's] meeting was really a disappointment," Scott said. "They had the opportunity to do the right thing."