The state Thruway Authority reached an agreement that will let it bill drivers from Ontario who pass through the cashless tolls on the Grand Island bridges without paying.
The authority on Thursday announced it had reached the resolution following months of negotiations with officials in Ontario.
The agreement takes effect Friday.
It does not retroactively cover prior unpaid vehicle trips.
"That's good news," said Patrick J. Whalen, director of the Niagara Global Tourism Institute and executive vice president of the Canadian-American Border Trade Alliance, of the agreement, on Thursday.
Whalen, who has decades of experience on cross-border trade issues, was among those who criticized the Thruway Authority for not devising a means to charge Canadian motorists for crossing the Grand Island bridges.
People are also reading…
He said he found it particularly irritating since he and other U.S. motorists who regularly use the 407 cashless toll road in Ontario have long been charged by the province.
"Well, obviously, they use the road, so they should pay like the rest of us," Whalen said.
"Cashless tolls is the way most states in the U.S. and provinces in Canada collect tolls," he added, noting that the technology for it has existed since the late 1990s.
Assemblyman Sean Ryan agreed that such an agreement was long past due.
"I'm not sure why it took so long to establish this reciprocity," Ryan said Thursday.
"As soon as the 407 opened...I remember I got on that by mistake while on my way to the Toronto airport, not realizing that it was a toll road. Within a week, I had an envelope at my house with a bill in it from that company (that manages the 407)," he added. "We're happy now that there's that complete reciprocity whereby Canadian citizens will be charged for using that road."
The Thruway Authority had lost a substantial – but unknown – amount of money each year, because it did not have the authority to send bills to drivers from the province who avoided paying cashless tolls, intentionally or unintentionally.
The agreement affects the cashless tolls in place along the I-190 at the North and South Grand Island bridges and the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge and fixed-price toll barriers in the lower Hudson Valley, according to the authority.
The cost to cross the Grand Island bridges is $1, or 95 cents for E-ZPass account holders.
A proponent of charging Canadian motorists who drive through the cashless tolls at the Grand Island bridges has been Grand Island Supervisor Nate McMurray. He was unavailable Thursday to comment on the Thruway Authority's agreement.
In July, McMurray told The Buffalo News of his frustration. "The Thruway Authority has had a lot of problems, and one of the problems I'm frustrated with is this Canadian issue," McMurray said at the time. "When I get on their express roads, they charge me. There's got to be a way for us to charge them," he added then.
In 2017, 23.6 million vehicles traveled through the toll barriers on the bridges, or nearly 65,000 vehicles per day, according to the authority.
In March 2018, cashless tolling went into effect on both bridges.
The authority had relied on Canadians to sign up for E-ZPass or otherwise pay their tolls online or by phone.
Skeptics wondered how many really did go out of their way to make the payments.
Before this week, the authority didn't have an agreement with Ontario to link a license plate to a vehicle's registered owner and mail a bill to an address in the province.
An authority spokeswoman said the agency expects to have a similar agreement in place with Quebec, by the end of the year.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly spelled Patrick J. Whalen's last name.
