Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission hikes being investigated by U.S. government

The Government Accountability Office has requested information from the commission as part of a probe into bi-state transportation authorities.

The federal Government Accountability Office says it is probing toll increases enacted by the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission and two more bi-state agencies.

The GAO, its spokesman Ned Griffith said today, is looking into whether the commission, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and Delaware River Port Authority are accountable.

"Recent toll increases on some bridges have raised questions about whether transportation authorities are remaining accountable to their congressionally approved compact," Griffith wrote in an email.

The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission last year increased passenger car tolls to $1 on its seven toll bridges between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Truck tolls also jumped, depending on the number of axles. State legislators on both sides of the Delaware River subsequently called for more oversight of and transparency from the commission.

Commission spokesman Joe Donnelly said today the agency would meet with Government Accountability Office investigators but that no date has been set. It received the office's request last week after U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., called for the investigation.

"The GAO has obviously been requested to look at processes for toll increases and why they're being made, and they contacted us," he said.

The bridge commission operates 20 bridges in all. Its Interstate 95/Scudder Falls Bridge, a major truck crossing, has received Federal Highway Administration approval for a $328 million replacement that would put tolls on the bridge.

New Jersey state Sen. Michael Doherty, who has been critical of the Scudder Falls project, called the federal probe of the bridge commission a "positive development."

Doherty, R-Warren/Hunterdon/Somerset, accused the commission of having a "spend, spend, spend attitude" and awarding bids to its "insider buddies."

"These authorities and commissioners have little or no oversight," he said. "Nobody's looking out for the people who pay the tolls."

Toll bridge Commissioner Ed Smith, who is also the Republican candidate for Warren County freeholder in the Nov. 6 general election, has been a vocal critic of the commission's Compact Authorization Investment, a program that funds local transportation projects for communities within the agency's 140-mile jurisdiction. The investment resulted in more than $40 million of new debt.

Smith, whom New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie appointed to the commission a year ago, said he welcomes the probe.

"I am concerned as we look at more and more toll roads being used as a solution to budget problems from public entities, these commissions are not held to a very tight standard," he said.

Staff writer Peter Panepinto, the Associated Press and Bloomberg News contributed to this report.