WASHINGTON – Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s war on the Port Authority’s toll hikes and the relationship between PA officials and Gov. Christopher Christie escalated into a war of words Wednesday during a hearing before the U.S. Senate’s Commerce Subcommittee, the Star Ledger reported.
Bill Baroni, the PA’s deputy executive director, was testifying when Lautenberg asked whether last summer’s toll hike on commuters had been fair. The Port Authority’s action raised peak tolls from $8 to $9.50 for E-ZPass customers and $12 for cash payers, rising in increments to $12 and $15, respectively, by December 2015.
Baroni responded by reminding Lautenberg that when he served as a Port Authority commissioner from 1978-82 the future senator utilized a commissioner’s perk and crossed bi-state bridges and tunnels for free 284 times in his last two years, the report said. Lautenberg called the response “silly.”
Additional reports, on NPR and other outlets, said that Lautenberg’s attempts to establish a timeline when Christie knew about the toll hikes, which he eventually endorsed, led to stonewalling from Baroni and complaints from the senator that the PA official was being evasive.
Lautenberg and Hudson County officials recently assailed the governor for his cancellation of the Access to the Region’s Core (ARC) rail tunnel after a General Accounting Office report indicated the figures on which the governor based his predictions of unacceptable cost overruns on the proposed project were overstated.