In press releases and public comments leading up to the toll hike approval in August, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said the money was needed to pay for a list of projects that included redevelopment of the World Trade Center site. The cost was of all the projects was eventually pegged at $25.1 billion.

But in legal papers filed this month in response to a suit against the toll hike, the bi-state agency says the trade center will not be funded by the increase afterall.

Instead, the agency says in its court filings, the toll hike will pay for $10.876 billion worth of projects, all involving the agency's Interstate Transportation Network, or ITN.

To Marta Genovese, the people behind last summer's record toll hike at bi-state bridges and tunnels are trying to have it both ways, saying one thing when justifying the increase to the public, but something very different when defending it against a lawsuit now pending in federal court.

"It's got to be one or the other," said Genovese, vice president of AAA of New York, which filed the suit with AAA of Northern New Jersey in September. "They can't have it both ways."

The suit seeks to overturn the toll hike on grounds that the World Trade Center is not a transportation project.

The Port Authority declined to comment on the discrepancy.

"As the Port Authority has said, the complaint is without merit. Due to the ongoing litigation, we can't comment further," Jamie Loftus, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in a statement Tuesday.

Christopher Ward, who stepped down as the agency's executive director last month, declined to comment.

But critics were pouncing.

Did the Port Authority, they asked, deliberately mislead the toll-paying public by including the trade center project, a highly symbolic venture of national significance, in order to make the costly toll hike more palatable?

Assemblywoman Valerie Vernieri Huttle (D-Bergen) called the discrepancy "an issue of public trust and accountability," which suggests that, "the Port Authority misled the public and commuters, or is now misleading a federal judge."

"'I'm calling on the Port Authority to explain its actions to the public and how it really intends to spend the dollars from the toll hike," Huttle said Tuesday.

Huttle said she will introduce a bill on Monday calling for additional public hearings before the next phase of the toll hike takes effect in December 2012.

Gov. Chris Christie and his New York counterpart, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, approved the toll hike after calling for a reduction in the initial proposal and an agency-wide financial review. The governors acknowledged the burden on toll payers, but said the hike was necessary to fund pressing projects.

Neither governor would comment on the discrepancy arising from the AAA lawsuit.

Effective Sept. 18, peak-hour tolls rose from $8 to $9.50 for E-ZPass users and $12 for cash customers. The tolls will rise in annual increments to $12.50 and $15 for E-ZPass and cash users, respectively, as of December 2015.

There was also a furor over the way the toll hike was presented.

The mandatory public hearings on the hike were held on a single day, three days before the approval vote, all eight of them during rush hour and at Port Authority facilities not typically used for public forums.

And skeptics said the announcement of a steeper, initial proposal, followed by the governors' demand for a reduction, was orchestrated to provide political cover for the two leaders, while still giving the Port Authority a revenue boost.

The automobile clubs filed their suit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, eight days after the hike went into effect.

"AAA Clubs contend that the challenged toll increases which are earmarked to fund cost overruns in the Port Authority’s speculative real estate development at the World Trade Center are illegal because the increases are not functionally related to the Port Authority’s integrated, independent transportation network," the suit states.

While the $11 billion trade center project includes a PATH and New York City Subway station, the Port Authority does not argue in the lawsuit that the trade center is part of its transportation network. Rather, the agency says the trade center is not funded by the toll hike.

"The Port Authority’s 2011 toll increase is clearly constitutional as the proceeds of the increase are going entirely into the ITN and not, as Plaintiffs claim, being used to fund the WTC development," the agency states in a filing dated Nov. 4.

An affidavit by Port Authority Chief Financial Officer Michael Fabiano puts the size of the ITN capital plan at $10.786 billion. The projects listed involve the PATH system, Journal Square Transportation Center, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, the Outerbridge Crossing, George Washington, Goethals and Bayonne Bridges, the two Port Authority bus terminals, and the ferry network it oversees.

A hearing in the case is scheduled for Dec. 8 in Manhattan.

The Port Authority made a very different set of assertions to the public when trying to sell the toll increase.

An Aug. 5 press release announcing the original, steeper toll hike proposal included the World Trade Center project as a reason for the increase: "Faced with three unprecedented challenges at once – (1) a historic economic recession that has sharply decreased revenue below projections, (2) steep increases in post-9/11 security costs, which have nearly tripled, and the overall cost of the WTC rebuilding, and (3) the need for the largest overhaul of facilities in the agency’s 90-year history – the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey today proposed a two-phase toll and fare increase to fully fund a new $33 billion ten-year capital plan, which will generate 167,000 jobs."

The increase was approved on Aug. 19, after a $5 billion cut in the capital plan that

reduced the size of the toll hike. But even then, that day's press release said, the increase would still cover "completion of the World Trade Center."

Related coverage:

• Editorial: Toll hikes: What's in it for New Jersey?

• AAA sues Port Authority over recent toll hikes

• N.J. commuters brace for bruising toll hikes set to take effect this weekend

• Port Authority toll hikes were unavoidable, chairman says

• Port Authority approves modified toll, fare hike for Hudson River crossings PATH

