Cash payments will no longer be accepted at the Ocean City-Longport Bridge, as well as four other toll bridges starting May 10.
Don’t bother with cash and coins to pay the bridge tolls.
Your money will be no good starting this weekend on the five Cape May County toll bridges connecting the beach towns along the scenic Ocean Drive.
The Cape May County Bridge Commission, the public agency that operates the spans, is ending cash transactions beginning Saturday and will allow only the E-ZPass automated toll system for payment of the $2.50 fare.
The commission operates the Ocean City-Longport Bridge, the Townsends Inlet Bridge, the Corson’s Inlet Bridge, the Middle Thorofare Bridge and the Grassy Sound Bridge.
The bridges hug the coast along the Ocean Drive between Ocean City and Cape May and are a popular summer route for shore-bound tourists.
Kevin Lare, the bridge commission’s executive director, said the decision to convert entirely to electronic toll payments will save money.
“It’s just the direction the tolling industry is going. It’s more efficient,” he said in an interview in February when the commission first announced it would go cashless starting May 10.
The Townsends Inlet Bridge connecting Sea Isle City and Avalon will be another span switching to all-electronic toll payments.Nearly 90 percent of the tolls collected on the five bridges are paid by drivers already using the E-ZPass system. Motorists who already have E-ZPass will see no change to cross the bridges when the cashless system begins.
For drivers who don’t, a photo will be taken of their license plate by the E-ZPass cameras and an invoice for the toll will be mailed to the vehicle’s registered owner for payment.
Discounted toll tickets, a throwback to the 1950s, will also no longer be accepted as payment. The bridge commission stopped selling toll tickets in 2018.
However, there had been old tickets still out there that had no expiration date, allowing motorists to use them indefinitely. The bridge commission has been buying back the old tickets for $1.20 each leading up to the conversion to all-electronic tolls.
With the switch to the cashless system, toll collectors will no longer be used on the bridges. However, some of the toll workers will remain as part-time bridge tenders to operate the Townsends Inlet, Corson’s Inlet, Middle Thorofare and Grassy Sound drawbridges to allow boat traffic to pass underneath.
“They’re great staff, but it’s a job that’s becoming obsolete. It will save between $400,000 and $500,000, and for a small operation, as the commission is, that’s a substantial amount of money,” Lare said of no longer having to pay salaries to the toll collectors.
