The New York Thruway Authority Board of Directors is going ahead with a plan to hike tolls in 2009 and 2010.

The board recently approved a controversial “toll adjustment,” hiking fees across the highway by 5 percent in 2009 and another 5 percent the following year.

Those increases are on top of a 10 percent bump that took hold in January. The discount for E-ZPass customers, put in play three years ago, is also being pulled.

The Thruway Authority says the $2.1 billion fiscal plan is needed to make improvements to the infrastructure. The increases amount to a penny-per-mile, they say.

The board put off voting on the increases until after the state officials negotiated final details for the 2008-09 fiscal year. The budget agreement, which was announced April 9, capped state spending growth at 1 percent instead of the typical 5 percent seen in recent years.

A 285-mile east-west trip on the Thruway from Albany to Buffalo currently costs a five-axle truck $52.16 with E-ZPass or $54.90 in cash. 

A 5 percent increase in 2009 would make the E-ZPass toll $54.77 and the cash toll $57.65, and the 5 percent in 2010 would push tolls to $57.51 for E-ZPass and to $60.53 for cash.

Thruway officials had public hearings in March, and state political leaders had field hearings earlier in the year in regard to the proposed increases.

In January, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released an audit of the Thruway, stating that the 2009 and 2010 toll increases were “not warranted” until the authority reviewed its own spending.

Thruway officials say the board has implemented numerous cost cuts since 1995, including the elimination of 450 positions and plans to eliminate an additional 50 positions by 2012.

“Had relief been provided, the Authority could have pursued other options, but the increase is, now, the last resort,” Thruway officials stated in a press release.

The Thruway took $554.4 million in 2006 and is the longest tolled highway in the U.S. at 641 miles, authority officials stated on the Web site.