The chief financial officer for Cherry Hill, NJ-based National Freight Inc. (NFI) warned a Senate committee that rapidly increasing and excessive highway tolls are a threat to both consumers and the trucking industry and called for Congressional oversight of tolling authorities that serve interstate traffic.
Stating that his trucking company paid $14 million in tolls in 2011 alone, NFI’s Steve Grabell pointed to the planned increases in tolls on the bridges between New York and New Jersey that raise tolls 163% by 2015 as an example of the impact of excessive tolls and a toll authority that requires Congressional intervention.
Grabell was testifying on behalf of the American Trucking Assns. before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee’s Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety and Security on Wednesday.
Federal enforcement authority over tolling agencies, “whether through judicial review, executive branch oversight, or a combination of the two, must be restored,” Grabell told the committee. “Absent such action, consumers and businesses will be compromised by unfair costs and a highway system that is less efficient and less safe.”
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