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Multi-axle vehicles including heavy-duty trucks will be paying higher tolls to cross San Francisco area bridges starting July 1, the Vallejo (Calif.) Times Herald reported.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg and three fellow Democrats from the New Jersey federal congressional delegation have asked the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to delay scheduled toll increases, the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger reported.

Tolls. To paraphrase the late Ronald Reagan, “There they go again.” The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls all the access from New Jersey to the nation’s largest city, has slapped trucks with higher tolls that will skyrocket 163% by 2015 to $105.

The expanding use of tolls on U.S. roads and significant toll increases are serious threats to the trucking industry and its customers, Steve Grabell, chief financial officer for National Freight Inc., told a Senate subcommittee last week.

Connecticut is preparing to conduct a $1.4 million study on express-lane tolls in the state’s Interstate 95 corridor, potentially without the use of tollbooths, the New Haven Register newspaper reported.

The state of Arkansas will fund a study to examine the viability of tolling a portion of Interstate 40 in the state, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.

Plans to charge a toll on Interstate 95 in North Carolina will make it more difficult for businesses to quickly and cheaply ship goods up and down the East Coast, the Associated Press reported, while a federal lawmaker has introduced a bill that would prohibit tolling the major north-south artery in the state.

WASHINGTON — U.S. interstate highways are in need of rebuilding and repair, but the use of tolls as a funding source is less efficient than raising the federal fuel tax, said Bill Graves, president of American Trucking Associations.

Many truckers started the new year digging deeper into pockets as 10 states imposed higher tolls.