Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

DRPA approves commuter toll discount for drivers

Regular commuters will once again get an $18 monthly discount on four Delaware River toll bridges, starting in about three months, following approval Wednesday by the Delaware River Port Authority board.

Regular commuters will once again get an $18 monthly discount on four Delaware River toll bridges, starting in about three months, following approval Wednesday by the Delaware River Port Authority board.

The discount will apply to motorists who use E-ZPass and cross the Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman, Commodore Barry, and Betsy Ross Bridges at least 18 times a month.

There will be no similar discount for PATCO train riders, prompting quick complaints from rail commuters. DRPA officials said motorists' tolls already provide a $26 million annual subsidy for PATCO operations.

About 30,000 motorists are expected to receive the commuter discount, which will cost the DRPA about $6.4 million a year. The discount will apply initially only to holders of a New Jersey-issued E-ZPass, but it is expected to be extended early next year to holders of Pennsylvania Turnpike-issued E-ZPasses, turnpike officials said.

Discounts were introduced in 2000, reduced in 2008, and discontinued in 2011 to save the DRPA money, but DRPA officials said the end of economic-development spending and other belt-tightening would allow the restoration of the discounts.

Most other toll agencies in the region provide E-ZPass or commuter discounts, or both.

"The board is excited to implement this commuter credit," the board's chairman, Ryan Boyer, said. "Having listened to the wants and needs of our commuters, it was clearly the right decision at the right time."

Less excited was PATCO rider Larry Davis, who operates the Twitter site @PATCOWatchers and who is a nominee to the DRPA's Citizens Advisory Committee. He said it was unfair to exclude PATCO train riders from the discounts.

"Giving frequent users a discount should not be selective," Davis said.

He said that many PATCO users pay more than the $5 bridge toll for their daily train ride, and that giving commuters an incentive to drive would increase congestion and parking problems and would likely decrease PATCO ridership.

He noted that other subsidized transit agencies, such as NJ Transit and SEPTA, provide discounted fares for their riders in the form of monthly and weekly passes.

DRPA chief executive John Hanson said PATCO riders already get a substantial discount from the true cost of their train service.

Operating costs for PATCO are about $52 million a year, while PATCO collects about $26 million a year in revenue from its riders, he said.

PATCO also is receiving about $300 million from DRPA tollpayers for major capital projects, such as refurbished rail cars and new track work on the Ben Franklin Bridge, Hanson said.

In other business Wednesday, the DRPA board approved the hiring of a new general counsel, Delaware County lawyer Raymond J. Santarelli, and a new inspector general, David Gentile, a former FBI agent.

Gentile, a former chief compliance officer for the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, replaces another former FBI agent, Thomas Raftery, who had a combative relationship with DRPA leaders during his tenure as the DRPA's first inspector general from 2012 to 2014.

Gentile said, "The last thing I want to be perceived as is another FBI agent who came here to run a quasi-investigative agency.

"My door will not have the title 'Grim Reaper. "

He said he would be an independent watchdog and would deal with corruption, fraud, or waste "straight on," but he said his relationship with others at the DRPA "doesn't have to be adversarial."

Gentile will be paid $130,000 a year.

Santarelli, the new chief lawyer for the DRPA, has been a lawyer with Elliott Greenleaf in the firm's Blue Bell office. He is active in Delaware County politics, having spent 12 years as legal counsel to the county's Democratic Party. He is chairman of the Springfield Township Democratic Committee.

He also serves as the solicitor for the Boroughs of Darby, Sharon Hill, and Yeadon, and is the former solicitor for Folcroft Borough.

He will be paid $165,000 a year in the DRPA position.

Another new hire for the DRPA is communications chief Kyle Anderson, a former aide to U.S. Rep. Robert Brady (D., Pa.). He will be paid $120,000 a year.

To assist Anderson, the DRPA board Wednesday approved a no-bid contract to hire Community Marketing Concepts, a Philadelphia public-relations agency, for $25,000.

Hanson said the firm was needed to help with marketing and public-relations for DRPA and PATCO leading up to Pope Francis' September visit to Philadelphia.