Next year, joining the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway, the Atlantic City Expressway will see a toll hike on Jan. 1.

The expressway tolls will increase by 3% under an automatic toll indexing plan. This process was approved with the May 2020, 37% toll increases and $500 million capital plan.  

Cash tolls on the 44-mile expressway's Egg Harbor and Route 50 toll plazas will increase from $4.25 to $4.40 for a passenger vehicle.  

According to an expressway toll schedule, tolls at Pleasantville, Route 9, Mays Landing, Winslow and Hammonton and Pomona-AC airport that now cost $1.25 will increase to $1.30 for cash customers and tolls at the Williamstown and the Berlin-Cross Keys exits will rise from 60 cents to 65 cents.

The new toll rates are lower for E-ZPass users or drivers enrolled in the Expressway's frequent user plan. Those rates will rise a dime from $2.72 to $2.82 at the Egg Harbor and Route 50 toll plazas. They'll go up 3 cents at Pleasantville and Route 9 from 85 cents to 88 cents, and go down to 78 cents at Mays Landing, Winslow and Hammonton and Pomona-AC airport, representing a drop from the 2021 rate of 85 cents for passenger vehicles.

Similar to the Turnpike and Parkway, the Expressway has seen an increase in traffic volume after lows caused by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Toll transactions increased almost 18% between October 2020 and October 2021 to 4 million.  

Authority statistics said year-to-date toll transactions were up 15% to 40.7 million toll transactions through October.

More than 54 million vehicles used the Expressway in 2019, paying a total of $83.5 million in tolls.  

Authority annual reports said in 2020 that number fell to 41 million vehicles due to COVID-19 traffic declines, raising $75 million in toll revenue.

The Authority's 2022 budget forecasts $114.7 million in revenue from tolls in 2022, an increase from $107.2 million in 2021. Expressway tolls are the largest revenue source for the Authority, followed by $9.39 million in Atlantic City airport revenues anticipated in 2022, up from $4.84 million this year. Officials did not say what factors will increase airport revenues.

Total airport passengers increased from 33,693 in October 2020 to 75,310 this October. 

Authority documents said the airport saw total passengers increase to 716,288 from 385,175 in the one-year period between Oct. 2020 and Oct. 2021.

For 2022, operating expenses and debt payments total $110.93 million.