Time was, if you were crossing the Tappan Zee either way, you got to pay the toll.

Eventually, the westbound toll booth came down and the toll went one-way. Commuters got a break with a book of tickets that pretty much lasted a month, unless, like me, you found daily reasons for extra trips, like going home for lunch or to check the afternoon mail.

There was even an art to it. You had to hold the ticket book in such a way that you separated one ticket from the rest and held the expiration date so the toll clerk could see it.

But even in those days, if you forgot your book or ran out of tickets, you could throw a handful of change at the plastic toll basket and wait for the coin-counting equipment to do its thing and activate the green light to send you on your way.

We were talking something like $1 or $1.50 back then, an amount of change you could easily find with one pass searching the front seat cushions.

But no more.

Come Jan. 4, the one-way TZ toll is going up for the second time in recent memory — this time from $4.50 to $5.

We’re pretty much an EZ Pass culture now, but imagine trying to hand off 20 quarters at rush hour?

Or even finding five singles if your EZ Pass account is running on empty.

Back in the day, there was one pain-in-the-neck toll taker who periodically would take the ticket book from your hand to scrutinize it. He didn’t care if there were 50 cars behind you or if your engine was overheating and spouting steam and smoke, like mine once was.

Paying him in cash wasn’t really adding to his stress level. But I kinda wish he was around next month so I could stop at his booth and pay him a $5 toll in nickels — just once.

Of course, these toll increases are probably just the beginning. If some corporate entity buys the rights to the Tappan Zee as part of its rebuilding plan, we’ll probably need a bucket of quarters to pay the toll if EZ Pass has run dry.