It's going to be a little easier to cross the three highway bridges around Niagara Falls later this summer, with the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission adding E-ZPass.
The bridge commission runs the Whirlpool, Rainbow and Lewiston-Queenston bridges.
Each carries substantial traffic although each is different: tourists on the Rainbow; commuters on the Whirlpool; trucks on the Lewiston Queenston.
There is also heavy use of Nexus security passes, especially on the Whirlpool where that's the only acceptable identification for crossing.
"We're going to E-ZPass to provide an additional service to the travelers who cross our international borders," said Commission GM Lew Holloway.
"E-ZPass is a convenient mechanism to collect tolls, especially for residents of New York and there are some Canadians who have E-ZPass. Also, our commercial truck drivers, a lot of them have E-ZPass."
Holloway says it's not cheap and not simple to add E-ZPass to the pass systems already on the bridges. There's also a fare discount for the payment passes. Even with Nexus, he says it's not clear that E-ZPass will speed traffic although money can be added to Nexus and ExpressPass to handle tolls at the same time.
