Toll Bridges Too Costly For Takeover

CREST HAVEN — Who has $600 million to build new bridges to replace Cape May County Bridge Commission’s aging toll spans? Would it benefit taxpayers if the county took over those bridges and eliminated tolls?
The answers: Not even the federal government at this time. No.
Those were among points Stephen O’Connor, executive director of the Cape May County Bridge Commission and also county administrator explained to freeholders Tue., June 28 at a pre-meeting caucus.
Highlights:
• Cape May and Burlington are the state’s only counties with bridge commissions. Freeholders created the entity in 1934 in order to apply for federal money to build coastal highway toll bridges and highway approaches.
• There are 11 full-time and 16 part-time toll collectors. Full-timers earn $26.77 per hour; part-timers earn $15.48 per hour. Toll collectors’ salaries are a little over $1.1 million annually, which the county would have to pay without offsetting toll income.
• Collectors are covered by Local 196, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, same as the Garden State Parkway toll collectors. The current contract expired April 30, 2011.
• No full-time employee has been hired since 1990.
• If Middle Thorofare, Grassy Sound, and Townsend’s Inlet toll bridges as well as Upper Thorofare, Mill Creek and Great Channel bridges were people, they would be receiving Social Security checks. All were built within two years, beginning in 1938 as part of the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, a New Deal. They were completed in 1940.
• Total cost to build those spans: $1.7 million.
• Ocean City-Longport Bridge was purchased from Ocean City Coastal Highway Bridge Co. in 1946 for $720,000. Another $475,000 was invested to bring the 1928 structure up to par at the time.
• Corson’s Inlet Bridge was built in year, 1947-48 at a cost of $825,000.
At one point, Freeholder Susan Sheppard wondered what might happen if there were no bridge commission.
O’Connor’s overview of commission operations showed fixed costs taxpayers would assume, about $1.1 million in debt service and $1.8 million in operating costs if the commission were abolished.
The “unique thing about the Bridge Commission,” said O’Connor is that “unlike any other entity, you need individuals to operate the bridges. Unlike any other authority, the bridge tender is a toll collector,” he added.
“The county will have to have a tender no matter what. You have to operate the bridge whether you operate with a toll or not,” said O’Connor.
While tolls have risen since their onset in the 1940s of 25 cents to $1.50 for one-way passage, (free the other way), they don’t cover all costs associated with the bridges.
That there are “free” passages in one direction over the spans, said O’Connor, is well known to locals. They know which ways are free. That drop is shown by commission data that reveals toll revenues down in opposite directions in the off-peak season.
Tourists, O’Connor said, do not seem to mind paying tolls.
A prime example is Townsend’s Inlet Bridge, linking Avalon and Sea Isle City, he said.
O’Connor noted that span is “getting killed” toll-wise.
“I started as a toll collector on that very busy bridge. There are very few who use it in the winter, and we have to operate it 24-seven,” he said.
The Coast Guard will not permit Townsend’s Inlet Bridge to close seasonally, as it does Corson’s Inlet in Strathmere, and Grassy Sound in Middle Township. That is because it is the only drawbridge between Wildwood and Ocean City, and it must be manned to open for vessels seeking entrance to the Intracoastal Waterway, said O’Connor.
Without a doubt, he added, Middle Thorofare, linking Five Mile Beach and Lower Township into Cape May, is “one of the busiest there is.”
That is because marine traffic passes under the draw span heading to Cape May Inlet and Harbor, including many commercial fishing boats.
Total revenues from all five toll bridges are $3,188,803.
Of each $1.50 toll collected, 92 cents goes into operations, and 58 cents per each toll is considered income earned, according to the report.
O’Connor said the commission’s expense-to-toll compares favorably with Garden State Parkway, which reportedly has an expense of $1.05 for every $1 toll collected.
He said the commission considered E-Z Pass, but costs for the five bridges would be “prohibitive.” He said that South Jersey Transportation Authority, which operates Atlantic City Expressway, was asked about a cooperative venture, but that was deemed impractical.
All the bridges are two lanes, thus little would be gained for E-Z Pass users in speed.
“This is a very unique situation. They (bridges) are totally outdated, and they were never intended to generate the revenues. We are not like the Delaware Memorial Bridge with lots of lanes for traffic that can generate hundreds of millions of dollars,” said O’Connor. Toll on that span increased to $4 westbound as of July 1.
He added tolls, at $1.50, “were at their peak.” To charge more would probably cut traffic, especially by locals, he said.
Freeholder Gerald Thornton questioned the salary rate of part time collectors at $15 per hour, when certified nurses’ aides at Crest Haven Nursing Home “doing a job that’s pretty terrible” and earn $12 an hour, “And there is a guy standing there making more. Something is wrong.”
“It isn’t just that easy,” said O’Connor. “Raising that bridge is not that easy.”
“You can’t tell me guys are not watching TV,” Thornton responded.
O’Connor told Thornton, “Sit in the Middle Thorofare Bridge on a Saturday, there are boat opening, you have to stop traffic, then collect tolls. Sit up there for one afternoon weekend and see how intensive an operation it is.”
“I will go to the nursing home as soon as you have jobs open and tell the people they will take tolls and make $15 an hour,” Thornton said.
“I suggest you go to Middle Thorofare Bridge,” said O’Connor.
“These salaries seem somewhat high to me,” said Thornton.
O’Connor said that the commission’s total number of employees, 35, was cut by 49 percent since 1997, when there were 69 employees whose salaries totaled $1.6 million to 2011 when payroll was $1.46 million, a 9 percent drop.
Freeholder Director Daniel Beyel added that the county had “talked with two companies” about possible ownership, but costs of fixing, replacing and maintaining the spans with diminishing revenues, but they were rejected.
Beyel said the bridges were operating at a deficit since revenues were not covering costs associated with replacement or maintenance costs.
Faced with alternatives, freeholders took no action to take over the commission.
Contact Campbell at (609) 886-8600 Ext 28 or at: al.c@cmcherald.com