While congestion pricing aside, the New Year is bringing with it other new costs to get in and around New Jersey.

Tolls are going up on the Garden State Parkway, the turnpike and at all the Hudson River crossings.

Public transit fares are also increasing no matter whether you take the path or New Jersey Transit and the annual gas tax increase kicked in at midnight on January 1st.

Transportation advocates say the money is needed to pay for critical infrastructure projects and other internal costs.

But it also comes when more families are living paycheck to paycheck, trying to keep up with rising costs and demands.

For all the details, I'm joined by our budget and finance writer John Reitmeyer.

John, good to see you.

Happy New Year.

First of all, in this New year, it appears anyway, that it's going to cost more.

No matter how you travel in and around the state by car, by rail path.

New Jersey Transit.

Talk to me a little bit about what tolls and fares are going up.

Yes.

So first and foremost, on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey Turnpike, Atlantic City Expressway, there were annual inflationary basically an inflationary adjustment that went into effect when we started the new year.

So everyone is driving the toll roads, paying a little bit more, just a small percentage, if that's any consolation.

And that money goes to the upkeep of the toll roads.

Also going up on January one was the gas tax by about two and a half cents.

And that pays for the upkeep of the roads, the bridges and some of the rail infrastructure that's not maintained by the toll roads.

And so there's a portion of gas tax money every year that goes into what's called the Transportation Trust fund.

And really a part of a bigger capital program for transportation infrastructure investment.

So we had that kick in at the beginning of the year as well.

And then as you alluded to, you know, last year, fares on New Jersey Transit went up by 15%.

And in July, we're looking at another increase, but smaller of about 3% under the current plans.

So help break that down for me.

If I'm filling up at the pump, how much more might my tank of gas cost because of the gas tax increase?

I mean, that's what people really want to get their heads around.

Yeah, and there's a lot of moving parts because there's a federal gas tax and that's stayed the same.

And then prices change due to general fluctuations in gas prices.

And so actually we're in a period where prices have been pretty low for a while.

So a lot of people won't notice the it's about two and a half cents, 2.6 an increase.

So depending on what's going on with gas where you buy it, you might not even notice the increase because it's such a small percentage of the per gallon cost of gas and it's charged on a per gallon basis.

So if you're filling up ten, 15 gallons, you know, you're the gas tax, part of that would be easy to to not notice, especially at a time when gas prices are relatively low.

But certainly it adds up if you're an everyday commuter going to work, you know, this is a new additional cost that you have to pay when you're doing it on a weekly basis over the course of a year.

Yeah.

And when you look at all of these items together on a paper, it feels like you're being really smacked with a ton of new increases.

But as you mentioned, it's pennies on the dollar.

How critical is that money, though, for some of these infrastructure projects?

And why are we seeing all of these increases now?

Were we not putting money toward these projects as needed over the last several years?

So it adds up to billions of dollars in our pennies, you know, whether we're paying a toll or paying the gas tax, it adds up to billions of dollars annually.

And in some ways, some of the money goes to maintain local and county roads and bridges.

Those are usually those governments are heavily funded by property taxes.

So when we pay through these other ways, it can ease pressure in some ways on property taxes.

To your other question, you know, for a long time, we like New Jersey Transit, for example, didn't have any fare increases and then had a really big one last year.

Right.

So the idea is, would you rather, as the user, have these smaller fractional increases like 3% as the toll roads are now doing that?

That policy began a few years ago when they came out with a new capital program.

The idea would be it might be more palatable to have these small increases from time to time rather than that one big one, say, every ten years or so that really hits your wallet.

Although then there are people who like to have those consecutive years where they're saying, hey, my service hasn't necessarily changed or improved, so I don't want to pay more, even if it is just a small fraction.

Right.

But on the other side of that, these governments are facing the same increased costs that we as consumers are facing.

And so they've been dealing with, you know, the rate of inflation has slowed, but prices are still rising in a lot of categories so that the governments that run these transportation assets, they've been dealing with the same inflationary pressure that you and I have, you know, in our everyday lives.

Fair point.

We don't like to hear, but it's a fair point.

You can read John Reitmeyer's full story on this at NJSpotlightNews.org.

John, thanks so much.

You're welcome.