There are several ways to pay tolls in New York City: E-ZPass, Tolls by Mail, and Pay Toll Now. No matter how you pay, you can use any lane. Only E-ZPass will get you a discount of 30-50 percent.
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If you don't have E-ZPass and you're driving a vehicle with license plates from another state, the registered owner of the vehicle will be billed by mail. If you do have E-ZPass from another state — all or part of 18 states offer it — you can use it in New York, too.
There are many ways to pay tolls. The most popular are transponders or toll tags (primary or secondary) and license plates or videos. You can also pay by cash (note that some toll booths are cashless, though), credit/debit card, and prepaid card. If you have a choice, it is reasonable to select transponder payments.
With the 'Tolls NY' mobile app, available for free on the Google Play or Apple App stores, you can make one-time payments to your E-ZPass account by credit/debit card or bank account debit, as well as pay your Tolls by Mail bills.
The state-of-the-art system collects tolls at highway speeds via E-ZPass and Tolls by Mail, detecting classes of vehicles and applying the correct charge. If you have E-ZPass, your toll is collected using the same process that you are already familiar with.
While toll roads are common around major cities of the US, they are few and far between otherwise. So, depending on your destination, it is possible to avoid toll roads across US states. However, avoiding them altogether may not be economical as the optional route may be too long or too busy.
The only reason that I can see tolls being so expensive in the NYC area is that New York and New Jersey governments use them as a source of general revenue. With so many drivers having no choice but to take bridges and tunnels to get to work, that's quite a considerable revenue stream.
On many toll roads that only use an electronic system, visitors are required to either set up an account where they register their license plates or pay the cost of their toll online after they have used the road. There are some roads and bridges across the country that still accept cash payments.