Truckers: Toll Increases Could Shut Down Big Warehouses

January 17, 2008

Scott Goldstein, NJBIZ Daily

Gov. Jon Corzine’s proposed toll increases—part of his plan to restructure the state’s finances—could drive companies with huge warehouses along the New Jersey Turnpike—like Barnes & Noble and Costco—to consider moving out of the state, say truck advocates.

Distributors always seek to circumvent expensive tolls and will explore new trucking routes, perhaps moving their warehouses to places like Allentown, Pa., said Matthew Wright, president of the New Jersey Motor Truck Association. He said there are no tolls between the port of Baltimore and Allentown.

“The disruption of traditional trucking patterns could ultimately cost New Jersey a major industry—distribution,” Wright said.

Wright, who is also president of Apgar Brothers, a Bound Brook-based trucking company that hauls construction material throughout the Northeast, offered an example: Shipping a load from Baltimore to Edison now requires a $10 Turnpike toll. That’s 2 percent of the $400 freight rate. In 2022, the same Turnpike toll will increase to $80—16 percent of the $512 freight rate (assuming a 2 percent increase in the cost of shipments every year).

“That’s the kind of thing to cause shippers to rethink shipping patterns,” Wright said. “They’ll see the future toll increases and start planning now for when their leases runs out.”

The toll increases would hurt the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, as it competes with other ports like Baltimore; Norfolk, Va; Wilmington, N.C.; Charleston, S.C.; Miami and Jacksonville, Fla., said Jeffrey Alan Bader, president of the Association of Bi-State Motor Carriers Association, which represents drivers at the New Jersey and New York ports. “Raising the cost of moving goods and services throughout this region … will make the Port of New York and New Jersey less competitive and force shipping lines to send freight to more accommodating, less expensive states,” Bader said.