In a brazen bait-and-switch scheme, the Port Authority now says it will use massive toll hikes to pay for overdue repair projects — and not rebuilding the World Trade Center, as it earlier claimed.

The admission was made in court papers filed this week responding to an AAA lawsuit trying to halt the toll hikes.

PA officials had linked the deeply unpopular hikes to the rebuilding effort at Ground Zero, a high-ranking source at the agency admitted yesterday.