Edition: U.S. / Global


Published: November 29, 1987

THE proposal to double the tolls on the Garden State Parkway has inspired the predictable adverse public reaction and calls for hearings and investigations by state lawmakers.

The New Jersey Highway Authority, which operates the toll road, will hold public hearings on the proposed increase at dates to be announced, and the Senate Independent Authorities Committee has set Dec. 9 as the date for its own review of the authority's proposal.

In addition, the United Taxpayers of New Jersey staged a protest in Bloomfield last Monday at which its members tied red ribbons to the radio aerials of cars getting on the parkway at Milepost 148 and asked motorists to paint their tokens and quarters red as a signal to the authority that they are ''seeing red'' over the proposal.

The only person who can stop the increase is Governor Kean. He can refuse to sign the authority's minutes in which the toll increase is formally adopted sometime after the agency has held the public hearings required by law.

The question that has come up in recent days is: Has the Governor already made up his mind to approve the increase?

Mr. Kean said he was waiting for the authority to make its case at the public hearings and put forth a convincing argument that the increase was needed. He said he would sign the authority's plan only if he was convinced that the new money was absolutely necessary.

Spokesmen for the Governor and the authority maintain that Mr. Kean is keeping an open mind and has not yet decided one way or the other.

However, copies of the minutes of a closed authority meeting last January indicate that several authority members described the toll-increase proposal to the Governor and pictured him as being in accord with the plan.

The question of just how unconvinced Mr. Kean is should add some spice to the coming public hearings and make the authority's task of blunting public opposition for its plan a little more difficult.

The Assembly's deputy minority leader, John Paul Doyle, Democrat of Toms River, has already expressed some sketicism about the timing of the toll-increase announcement.

''I can't help but remember the New Jersey Turnpike toll-increase proposal, which was announced one day after the 1985 election,'' he said.

''By all appearances, the [ parkway ] approval was simply pushed through without debate at the last authority meeting, although parkway officials do acknowledge that they had discussed the toll hike recently in private.''

Mr. Doyle introduced a resolutiuon calling on Governor Kean to veto the toll increase and on the Assembly's Independent and Regional Authorities Committee to investigate the circumstances leading to the proposal.

Mr. Doyle, asserting that the increase could have an adverse impact on the Shore tourism industry, said:

''In my own district and in other districts in the eastern part of the state, the parkway is not simply a thruway. It is an integral part of our local road network.''

Judith Stanley, the authority chairman, has pointed out that the parkway has not had a toll increase since it was opened in 1954. However, there has been a rise in the number of toll collection points, especially ramps, where the total has grown from 6 at the beginning to 19 today.

In addition to increasing the basic toll to 50 cents from 25 cents at the across-the-road barriers, the parkway plans to construct new barriers in Cape May and Atlantic Counties between 1989 and 1991.

When completed, the highway will have 13 toll barriers along its 173-mile length.

Parkway officials say the toll increase is needed to maintain its covenent with bondholders and to help pay off an ongoing $570 million capital-improvement program.

The new schedule calls for increasing to 50 cents the passenger-car tolls at the across-the-road barriers and at the four entrance and exit ramps that now charge 25 cents.

However, tokens will be available for 35 cents, which would reduce the impact on regular commuters.

Entrance and exit ramps that now charge less than 25 cents would charge that amount in the future. The toll for buses would go to $3 from $1, but commuter buses that now use 50-cent tokens will be able to buy them for $1 and other buses will be able to purchase $2 tokens.

If the new toll schedule wins final approval, the increases will take effect next April 2.