Bridge and tunnel crossings around New York City are always tough at rush hour, but they could get a lot worse next week during protests of scheduled toll hikes.

A controversial New Jersey man is behind efforts to clog major crossings, including I-95 at the George Washington Bridge, during the morning rush hours next week and the week after. Joseph D’Alessio of Fort Lee is asking toll payers to slow down, blink their headlights and pay in small denominations for three hours beginning at 7 a.m. on Monday, March 12, at the George Washington Bridge, the Lincoln Tunnel and all the other facilities run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He asks that protests resume on Tuesday the 13th and Wednesday the 14th, and then again on Monday, March 19 and into the following week.
D’Alessio, who has a local cable TV show called "Citizens in Action," called the toll hikes set to go into effect on Sunday, March 25, "outrageous."
The new toll will be $6 per axle for trucks paying cash. E-ZPass users will pay $6 per axle during peak hours, $5 per axle during off-peak hours and $3.50 per axle during overnight hours. The cash toll remains the same at all times.
D’Alessio said his protest has the backing of the Automobile Association of New Jersey, the New Jersey Motor Truck Association, and the Owner Operator Independent Driver Association, among otherss.
But Gail Toth, president of the New Jersey Motor Truck Association, said the association is not asking members to join the protest.
Toth did say that she sympathizes with the effort, and that for some New Jersey Motor Truck members the toll hike will mean a $10 toll increase per crossing. "I have members making 600 crossings a week," she said. "That’s an increase of $300,000 per year!"
Similarly, OOIDA Executive Vice President Todd Spencer stopped short of endorsing the slowdown. "We don’t tell our members what to do," he said. "We only tell them what’s going on."
Spencer also blasted the toll increase, which will fall heavily on cash-paying customers and truckers who have to use the crossings during heavy traffic hours. Spencer said that what the Port Authority calls congestion pricing is discriminatory to small business.
Protest organizer D’Alessio is a controversial figure in New Jersey, where he lost a bid for Fort Lee council last year. D’Alessio was volunteer state coordinator of Pat Buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign before being removed for making statements in which he compared interracial marriages to the cross-breeding of animals.