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We're flying to JFK tomorrow, renting a van and spending the weekend in NJ / NY. We will be doing a lot of driving. I know our Illinois iPass works in NY/NJ. Should we go to the trouble of taking it with us? Will it save us a lot of time + money? I would have to scrape / pry it off of our windshield. Someone suggested I would need to modify the license plate in the system to the rental, but I wouldn't be able to do that until we rented the car and then got to a computer, obviously.
Is this more trouble than it is worth?
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Depends on what time of day you are traveling along the toll roads. Late night / early morning traffic is light enough that it might not matter. During heavy traffic you will be very thankful to have one, and at certain toll booths you actually can get a discount for using the electronic pass.
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Flying in at 4pm to JFK and have to drive to Orangeburg, which I hear is about 75 minutes.
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I know that Avis has EZPass transponders in their rentals out of NYC/NJ metro airports. If you choose to use it, you flip it open and your card will be charged any tolls. Call your car rental agency and see if they offer this as well.
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I think it would be nice. NJ likes to use the toll-every-so-often model, as opposed to just when you get off at an exit. Keeping small change for that is a pain, especially for an out-of-towner who's not familiar with where the toll barriers are.
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Just called Hertz JFK.
"90% of our cars have transponders in them."
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In most areas, there are iPass-only lanes that are MUCH faster than waiting in line to pay. Absolutely worth it, either via Hertz or bringing your own. I wouldn't even _think_ about doing it any other way.
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Yes, do not even THINK about paying cash......
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i would definitely bring the ipass.
the nyc metro version is called ez pass.
i do know for us, we need to let the ez pass folks know the license plate of the car designated for that transponder.
is that the same policy u have with your ipass? even for out-of-state rental cars?
jfk->orangeburg at 4pm on a friday is a very long and heavily trafficked trip. u need to go north across the boro of queens, then west over triboro bridge up north to the gw bridge, west over the bridge then north up to orangeberg. a bad weather day or a traffic headache and the 75min can easily be 2hrs.
jfk->van wyck (terrible road especially in traffic) ->grand central -> triboro/robert kennedy bridge ->major deegan thruway->geo washington bridge->palisades parkway->orangeburg exit 7...i think
880am traffic reports on the 8s 5:08
1010am traffic reports on the 1s 5:01
1130am traffic reports on the 15s 5:15
with all of this emphasis on traffic, please try to remember nyc is great. enjoy yourself if u manage to get into town and not just drive thru it!
pm me if u want really detailed traffic thoughts.
be well
rob
