Most of you have probably heard of the truism uttered by Pennsylvanian Ben Franklin after the establishment of our country’s Constitution: “Everything seems to promise it will be durable,” he said of the groundbreaking document, “but in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.”

I would like to add another certainty - tolls. Highway tolls, bridge tolls, etc. In our modern society, it is for us that the tolls toll (with apologies to Ernest Hemingway and Metallica).

Ironically, one of the tolls is the five bucks it costs to cross the Ben Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia.

I was made painfully aware of the bite that tolls are taking on my wallet when I recently decided to drive to Atlantic City for my first trip to a casino in more than a year. After I had gotten my second Pfizer shot and more than two weeks had passed, I felt comfortable enough to make this re-entry into society.

When I added up my round-trip tolls, I was shocked to find that I had paid $29.60 in highway and bridge tolls - $14.30 for my time on the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike from Mahoning Valley to Mid-County, $5.50 for the Atlantic City Expressway and $5 to cross the Ben Franklin Bridge (a one-way toll).

On top of that, it seems that every time we turned around in the last couple of weeks there were either toll increases coming on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, other bridges or Pennsylvania Department of Transportation proposals to toll bridges over local interstates.

On April 11, tolls on bridges operated by the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission will go up for the first time in 10 years. Another increase will take place in 2024.

We can blame the COVID-19 pandemic for this decision, according to the bi-state commissioners, who cited the decline in passenger car traffic and toll revenue for the need to raise tolls.

We also sometimes forget that the commission maintains 12 “free” bridges, including one connecting Easton and Phillipsburg, New Jersey. There also is a toll bridge on Route 22/I-78 that spans the Delaware River connecting these two locations.

Passenger vehicle tolls will increase from $1 to $1.25 for drivers with an E-ZPass account and from $1 to $3 for drivers who pay cash at five other bridges. In addition to the Easton-Phillipsburg bridge, these rates affect the Delaware Water Gap (I-80), Portland-Columbia (routes 611, 46 and 94), Trenton-Morrisville (Route 1), New Hope-Lambertville (Route 202), and Milford-Montague (Route 206) bridges.

In 2024, a second toll increase will take effect. E-ZPass passenger vehicles will be charged another 25 cents to $1.50. The non-E-ZPass motorists will continue to pay $3.

Motorists who don’t have E-ZPass are basically being forced into getting it; otherwise, they are being tolled to death by the outrageous disparity between those who have the transponder devices and those who don’t.

Studies show that those without E-ZPass can least afford the stiff toll increases. Commission Executive Director Joe Resta said more than 75 percent of the commission’s toll transactions are through E-ZPass.

Toll hikes are a double whammy for us motorists/consumers. Not only are we affected by the toll hikes themselves, but so, too, are operators of commercial vehicles. These additional costs are passed along to us when we buy groceries or other goods.

The commission solicited public comment and received 115 from hearings, emails, letters and phone calls. Most said it was a poor time to raise tolls in light of the high unemployment rate and the dislocations being caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This toll hike announcement occurred several weeks after PennDOT released a plan to toll nine bridges in the state, including those on I-80 over the Lehigh River in Carbon and Luzerne counties, the I-80 bridge over the Nescopeck Creek in Luzerne County, and the I-78 bridge replacement project near Lenhartsville in Berks County. The tolls would presumably be between $1 and $2.

There was an immediate public outcry, along with opposition from Reps. Doyle Heffley, R-Carbon, and Jack Rader, R-Monroe, and Sen. John Yudichak, I-Luzerne. A bill has been introduced into the state Senate to compel moves like this to get legislative approval.

The proposal was approved by the Public-Private Transportation Partnership, which was initiated by PennDOT with legislative input to seek construction economies.

Let’s not forget that the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has warned us that tolls will increase annually on that roadway for the next two decades - something none of us will be looking forward to.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.