The 90th anniversary of the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission’s formation is tomorrow.
The bistate (New Jersey and Pennsylvania) agency was formally organized on December 28, 1934 at the former Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, PA. The Commission’s formation was the final agenda item for a predecessor agency — the former Joint Commission for Elimination of Toll Bridges – Pennsylvania-New Jersey – the two states established in 1916 to facilitate the acquisition and freeing of private toll bridges along the river.
The former “Joint Commission” was immediately disbanded upon the creation of the new “Bridge Commission, which was bestowed powers that exceeded the limited aims of its predecessor agency. The most notable changes included the ability to issue bonds for purposes of constructing new highway bridges and then collect tolls to retire bonding debts and offset operating costs. Indeed, the reconstituted Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (DRJTBC) had a broader and more futuristic mission along the river from Trenton, N.J. to the south and the New York-New Jersey state line to the north.
Respective identical state agreements establishing the new Commission were signed by Governor A. Harry Moore of New Jersey on December 18, 1934 and Governor Gifford Pinchot of Pennsylvania on December 19, 1934. The Commission became fully empowered on August 30, 1935 when the U.S. Congress ratified a federal Compact codifying the state agreements.
The driving force behind the Commission’s creation was the pressing need for a modern-highway bridge between Easton, Pa. and Phillipsburg, N.J. The Northampton Street Bridge –nearing 40 years old at that time — was the lone vehicular crossing linking those two cities and that three-lane structure was overwhelmed by crippling traffic daily – even during the depths of the Great Depression. Digitized film footage of the Depression-era traffic jams at Easton and Phillipsburg has been posted on the DRJTBC’s YouTube channel and may be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWwXWEu0Cfg&t.
The new Commission’s primary initial focus was to construct a second vehicular bridge between Easton and Phillipsburg. That structure – originally called the Bushkill Street Bridge – reached completed and opened on January 14, 1938. After highway approaches were constructed through Easton to the bridge in the 1950s, the structure was given its current name – the Easton-Phillipsburg Toll Bridge, which carries U.S. 22.
The Commission today owns/controls, operates, and maintains seven additional highway-speed toll bridges across the river between the two states. They are in order of construction with current highway designations: Trenton-Morrisville (Route 1) in 1952, Portland-Columbia (Routes 611, 46, 94) in 1953, Delaware Water Gap (I-80) in 1953, Milford-Montague (Route 206) in 1953, New Hope-Lambertville (Route 202) in 1971, I-78 in 1989, and Scudder Falls (I-295) in 2019/2021.
Under the last series of changes made to the Commission’s Contract between 1984 and 1987, the Commission also owns, operates, and maintains 12 non-toll bridge crossings that were once jointly owned by the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The two states purchased each of those river crossings from respective former local shareholder-owned companies with the assistance of the former Joint Commission for Elimination of Toll Bridges. The acquisition of these former private toll bridges occurred between 1918 and 1932. Under the Compact changes of the 1980s, the states conveyed ownership of these bridges outright to the Commission and directed that the Commission operate and maintain them by using a portion of the revenue it collects at its toll bridges.
Prior to the Commission’s ownership, the costs of operating and maintaining the non-toll bridges were financed by appropriations from the two states. Since toll revenues currently provide the sole source of support, the Commission now refers to these non-toll bridges as “toll-supported bridges.” (Note: There is no such thing as a “free bridge;” someone is paying for the bridge somewhere.)
About the Commission
The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission was formed statutorily by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the State of New Jersey in 1934 and Congress ratified the arrangement under the Compact Clause of U.S. Constitution in August 1935. The agency operates eight toll bridges and 12 toll-supported bridges, two of which are pedestrian-only spans. The Commission is a self-supporting public-service agency that receives neither federal nor state tax dollars to finance its projects or operations. Funding for the operations, maintenance and upkeep of its bridges and related transportation facilities is solely derived from revenues collected at its toll bridges. The Commission’s jurisdiction extends along the Delaware River from the Philadelphia-Bucks County line north to the New Jersey/New York border. Its bridges carried more than 131.5 million cars and trucks in 2023. For more information, please go to: www.drjtbc.org.
