Toll rates as any regular reader of Bus & Motorcoach News knows are climbing on roadways, bridges and tunnels across the country, but it is not just because of the weak economy and Congress inability to come up with long-term highway funding legislation.

Some toll hikes are helping pay for new construction.

Tolls along the Eastern seaboard are going up so much and so fast that making the four-hour trip from Baltimore to New York City could cost commercial vehicles more in tolls than paying the driver and buying fuel.

Tolls went up last year in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and on the bridges and tunnels connecting New York and New Jersey. And officials are looking at hikes in Maine and upstate New York soon.

Experts say times are tough and states are looking for any revenue they can find, particularly for transportation.

The toll surge is happening even though many of the agencies that run toll facilities are insulated from the fiscal pressures hitting states generally.

Fuel taxes, for example, have steadily decreased in buying power as politicians at both the state and federal level have resisted raising them. But, unlike most state highways, toll roads typically do not depend on it.

There are many factors behind the avalanche of toll increases. Some states are trying to make up for lost revenue from thinning traffic. Others have decided they can no longer afford to put off crucial repairs.

And still others - the most controversial of the toll increases - will pay for new construction.

Big city, big controversy

This past summer, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates three Hudson River crossings, riled almost everyone with a massive toll hike proposal. (See Sept. 15 Bus & Motorcoach News.)

Even after the Port Authority slimmed down its plan and refashioned it to shift some of the burden of the hike from cars to commercial vehicles, motorist groups still hated it. As would be expected, truck and bus operators were particularly outraged.

A lawsuit was filed trying to roll back the increases, which are to continue climbing through 2015 under the plan. (See Oct. 15 Bus & Motorcoach News.)

The Illinois Tollway Authority, which runs a network of roads in northern Illinois, also approved major toll hikes last summer. Tolls nearly doubled on some stretches of road.

The toll authority expects to raise $8 billion over 15 years, to go toward a major highway construction program. Much of the effort is focused on improving the agencys existing roads over the next 15 years.

The toll hike will help fund some new construction in Illinois, as well. Most noteworthy is the extension of a suburban highway to the west side of OHare airport, which is currently only accessible from the east.

When tolls went up last month it will be the first time most Illinois motorists have paid an increase since 1983.

In Maryland, tolls have gone up on bridges, tunnels and highways around the state. State officials cited the need to catch up on maintenance - as well as paying for a new toll road called the Intercounty Connector, a segment of which opened this past fall.

Routine increases

Maine drivers could face a toll hike, thanks to one byproduct of the down economy: fewer drivers on the road paying tolls to support the system. This is unusual for the state. For six decades, the Maine Turnpike Authority never saw a decline in revenue; the streak ended in 2008.

Declining traffic remains a problem. Last years traffic was down 1 percent from 2010, with a corresponding drop in revenue. That is one reason, says an agency spokesman, the turnpike authority is looking at raising tolls by about 25 percent in 2013.

The extra $25 million would also help pay for the reconstruction of bridges. There are 176 spans along the 109-mile road, and many are reaching the end of their projected life.

Plus, the agency is preparing to expand an eight-mile stretch of the road from two to three lanes in each direction. The turnpike authority put the widening project on hold because of the recession. But it is still upgrading the bridges in the area so they will be able to accommodate the wider road.

In Florida, state law requires the Florida Turnpike Enterprise to raise tolls by next summer. A 2007 law directed the agency to raise its tolls within five years to keep up with inflation, and now that deadline is approaching.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike enacted toll increases for the fourth year in a row when it scheduled hikes this year. It also approved a plan to hike those rates again in 2013 and 2014. The hikes include money the turnpike must hand over to the state to help pay for other transportation needs.

Tolls on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway took a big jump at the beginning of the year.

The toll hikes represented the second half of a two-phase increase adopted by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority in October 2008 under former Gov. Jon Corzine.

North Carolina entered the toll-road business quietly at the first of the year when the state Turnpike Authority began collecting electronic payments from drivers on the Triangle Expressway.

The first 3.7 miles of the six-lane expressway, which stretches N.C. 147 south from Interstate 40 through Research Triangle Park to the 540 Outer Loop, were opened.

Construction is under way on the rest of the road, extending 540 through western Wake County. By the end of 2012, drivers will be paying tolls on 18.8 miles of the TriEx, as the tollway is called, from Research Triangle Park to Holly Springs.

The toll road has exits conveniently close to major Research Triangle Park destinations, but it also is a quick path for bypassing the park altogether.

While the Triangle Expressway isn't the first U.S. toll project to be built without coin collection booths, but North Carolina -- which was the last East Coast state without a toll road -- apparently is the first state to begin tolling without ever having collected cash from drivers. More toll bridges and roads are in the works from Charlotte to the Atlantic coast, and most or all of them will be operated without tollbooths.

And, on the opposite side of the U.S., tolling began on Seattles Highway 520 Bridge, one of Washington state's busiest bridges.