2025 Was a Brutal Year for Trucking. The Thruway is Making 2026 Worse
Running a trucking company in New York in 2025 has required one thing above all else: resilience.
Over the past year, carriers like mine have been hit from every direction — rising insurance premiums, volatile fuel costs, new tariffs that raise the price of parts and equipment, and a freight market that never delivered the rebound many of us were counting on. For small and midsize operators, this has been a long, grinding period of uncertainty; not a sudden crash but a drawn-out squeeze.
I’m the president of Lightning Express Delivery Service, Inc., a Hudson Valley–based trucking and logistics company I started more than two decades ago in the basement of my home. Today, we employ more than 30 people and operate a regional fleet that delivers everything from food and medical supplies to time-sensitive freight across New York and the Northeast. Like many small carriers, we run lean, invest carefully and focus on reliability because our customers depend on us to keep their businesses moving.
According to the American Trucking Associations, our industry has been stuck in a prolonged freight downturn since 2022 — not collapsing, but not recovering either. Rates and volumes have remained flat while costs keep climbing. Insurance expenses have surged due to litigation trends and cargo theft. Equipment and parts prices are rising, in part because of new tariffs. Driver wages remain high because qualified drivers are hard to find. This is what economists now describe as “stagflation” for trucking: higher costs with no relief on the revenue side.
For companies like mine, that means every new fee matters.
Earlier this year, congestion pricing added another layer of cost and administrative burden for carriers delivering into New York City. I can tell you that managing those tolls isn’t just about the dollars — it’s the time, staffing and accounting complexity that comes with tracking and allocating charges that can add up quickly. We’ve worked through it, because that’s what we need to do: adapt.
But as we head into 2026, the New York State Thruway Authority is proposing a new, totally unannounced surcharge on tolls processed through commercial toll-management providers. In practice, that’s a backdoor toll increase or a new tariff. Honestly, I don’t really care what you want to call it, but it’s aimed squarely at trucking fleets, with no additional service, benefit or transparency.
This comes on top of toll hikes already approved in 2024 and scheduled again for 2027. And unlike those increases, this surcharge bypassed the public process entirely. There were no hearings, no outreach to the businesses affected and no opportunity for input.
For an industry already under strain, that timing couldn’t be worse.
Trucking doesn’t exist in a vacuum. We are the connective tissue between farms, manufacturers, warehouses and stores. If you want affordable food, building materials or household goods, you need trucks to move them — efficiently and predictably. Governor Hochul has rightly emphasized affordability and support for agriculture and food production, including efforts to help farmers manage rising labor costs. Adding hidden transportation costs into the supply chain undermines that goal.
When trucking costs rise, they don’t disappear. They show up in higher prices, delayed investment and tougher decisions for small businesses trying to survive.
The solution here isn’t complicated. If the Thruway Authority needs additional revenue, it should start by fixing documented problems in toll collection and enforcement, not by quietly shifting new costs onto an industry already carrying more than its share.
I am not asking for special treatment. We’re asking for transparency, fairness and a recognition of the economy we’re operating in. After a punishing year for the industry, New York should not kick off 2026 with another surprise fee that makes it harder to keep goods — and the economy — moving.
Joseph Fitzpatrick is president of Lightning Express, a Hudson Valley–based trucking and logistics company serving New York and the Northeast.
