Gothamist: Tolls for East River Bridges Freak Drivers Out

Yellow Cab NYC

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 00:53:19 -0500

I hope they will not charge Yellow Cab Drivers or maybe only if they have a fare...

azzh01

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:44:57 -0500

Verrazanno is $10, actually. And it's rusty as hell. I wonder where the $10 goes.

The Edge

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:51:00 -0500

#42- I didn't mention building and electrical supply for no reason. Ever see somebody try to carry a bundle of EMT into the subway?

GM

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:36:42 -0500

I'm saying that you are spouting the same kind of nonsense that killed off congestion pricing. And I would be careful who your are attacking, because you obviously don't know anything about deliveries. I would love for there to be less vehicular traffic so my trucks can get to the jobsite quicker.

cameradork

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:09:14 -0500

If they could offer breaks to the pricing for commercial vehicles and taxis, I dont see why this cant work. Other cities that have done congestion pricing offer similar breaks and it has been fairly well received. Also, in theory the less traffic the easier their jobs will be. Delivery companies and taxis spend alot of money per year on tickets and fines that they get because parking and unloading forces them to double park and park in fire zones etc, which also increase traffic. If this can curb frivolous driving into manhattan by people who are just too lazy or think they are too special to take the train, It will be good for everyone.

glennQNYC

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:40:15 -0500

How do you think the vast majority of food and drink gets into Manhattan? Hint: It isn't using the subway...

The Edge

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:57:35 -0500

Yes, well, according to most folks here -- if they don't own cars nobody else shouldn't, either.

farleft

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:01:51 -0500

Less vehicles in Manhattan = less cars at metered parking = less money for the city = more traffic tickets to justify this move = greater expenses for citizens & tourists = stupid move. Not to mention tolls at bridges = cars sitting idle for hours = more pollution = stupid move.

The Edge

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:15:38 -0500

#35- I have no idea what I'm talking about? You obviously don't know how it is to run a business that depends on vehicular traffic -- whether that means for customers, receiving shipments, or making deliveries. Do you? It seems like you're assuming that local businesses only cater to their own neighborhood. Or can only depend on said neighborhood to stay afloat. It doesn't always work that way, not for all types of businesses. Furniture stores, building and electrical supply, just to name a few.

wowthatsucks

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:06:44 -0500

all the idling cars waiting at tolls booths can't be good for air quality in the neighborhoods surrounding the bridges.

GM

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:46:35 -0500

I would imagine that small businesses would do better as people stay within their neighborhoods to purchase items. If there is decreased incentive to drive I would think less people would do it, right? Thus, rather than driving to the biggest box mart they'll shop local. While so-called conservatives claim that the MTA is a black hole without looking at the black hole that is our road system (wait, how are those roads funded again??) it looks like the MTA is coming under increased scrutiny of it's operations. Just the fact that its budget is short is going to make a big difference. And The Edge #34, seriously. Where do you read this nonsense? You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

The Edge

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:28:57 -0500

This, as usual, would affect the middle/lower classes and the mom-and-pop stores more than anyone else. You think Home Depot, Staples, etc. are going to bat an eye? You guys who only think "fuck drivers!" are just ignorant on so many levels. Yeah, fuck all the 30+ year old small businesses that depend on vehicular traffic--for a number of reasons. Just don't bitch when they all end up going out of business. Hell, most of them already have. And some of you people wonder why there are four Starbucks and Duane Reades in your neighborhood.

glennQNYC

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:35:30 -0500

If people think they are avoiding increased tolls and fees by avoiding driving are only fooling themselves.

Triboro

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:53:21 -0500

My point is that you should take your own advice and charge a market price, based on costs and externalities. Then "resources" (bridge access) will be allocated efficiently. "Free" access is clearly economically inefficient, for numerous reasons, including those noted above. Why conservatives lose their head when talking transit policy is beyond me . . .

Bottomless Chips

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:04:56 -0500

#30, What are you trying to say?

Triboro

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:39:31 -0500

The market always allocates resources at a fair rate through prices. Cool. Let's charge a price commensurate with its cost, then. Infrastructure doesn't maintain itself. Air doesn't keep itself clean. Also - What if, during rush hour, Fresh Direct can deliver twice as much food in Lower Manhattan under traffic-mitigated circumstances than under current circumstances? What if a tenant would pay more to live on Delancey if the street was safe and its air clean? These are real economic benefits. Please visit the traffic-choked third world and see for yourself how well it's working out.

Bottomless Chips

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:50:33 -0500

Tolls are not a tax, they are a user fee. It's an excise tax. You can call it whatever you want, though. Point being: Food, mail, and everything else will cost more. People always paint conservatives as heartless, but we believe that excessive taxation always wipes out the middle class first. This is case in point. You think the city will allocate the capital better? The market always allocates resources at a fair rate through prices. When it goes to gov't it's a black hole. Yay, liberals!

fixilator

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 17:41:32 -0500

Verrazano toll is now $9, by the way.

JacqueMehoff

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 17:14:37 -0500

plugging the MTA's budget? how bout plugging the City's budget? why is the MTA involved? they're city bridges. where's the mayor? why so mum? let the MTA raise the toll's on their bridges and tunnels.

Triboro

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:11:16 -0500

It's important to assess this comprehensively. Assertions that tolling East River bridges is a bad economic decision are unconvincing. For starters, neighborhood beautification would attract professionals and human capital to the city. Positive externalities abound, and might very well outweigh the burden.

Steven

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:09:29 -0500

If all you people want fresh air move to the country! If not move to a residential area. There are many quiet blocks in Kew Gardens, Bayside, Douglaston, Hillcrest, Fresh Meadows, Utopia etc. If you live in Manhattan or near a main street/intersection you better believe there will be traffic and noise. People want NYC to be like Bear Mountain State Park.

yakatori

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:00:52 -0500

so much ignorance by people on both sides of the issue. It's no wonder this city sucks, it's filled with asssholes who can't see beyond their little world. When will we have an influx on compassionate intellectuals? The ones that remain here must be hiding in a bunker somewhere

blablanyc

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:59:50 -0500

The city should instate congestion pricing too. Then the city's economy would come to a screeching halt.

Triboro

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:39:22 -0500

Most people are too shallow to consider the (very) high social costs of automobiles, including but not limited to: exhaust, noise pollution, risk of maiming, congestion, blight. I live on Grand St., in Brooklyn, which - sadly - is little more than an extended onramp for the Williamsburg Bridge. There are a lot of kids in the neighborhood, but scant play space - and smoggy air even if there was. Generally, it's an unhealthy urban environment. Tolling just makes too much sense - people need to change their behavior but few will do so on their own: User fees are an effective tool.

petebfd

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:07:43 -0500

first off, not a neo-lib fuckholes. but way to spend 500 words attacking me and not making any point about the issue. i feel honored. you talk about YOUR city, fuck you. its not your city. it belongs to everyone who lives here, lived here, will live here. among whom you are one in billions. billions of people who will benefit from having a city in which less people spend half and hour driving 2 miles to work. i know the city is not full of only walkers and cyclists. but it can and should be. you drive because you choose to because you're lazy and an asshole. and i don't pretend to be miserable. i'm actually happy, so i actually act happy.

nomnomnom

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:35:09 -0500

Wait, how can the MTA put a toll on all the bridges if they don't operate all of them?

rcltrh

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:32:37 -0500

Tolls here are punitive more than anything to discourage people from driving. The Verrazano was paid for years ago as was the Triborough. You can tell they are punitive by the amount. 8 freaking dollars just to cross a bridge. I can drive the entire length of New Jersey for that amount. Not to mention the taxes we are already paying go to road upkeep. Temporary tolls to overcome a situation such as this might not be so bad except that there is no such thing in this city as a temporary toll. Once established, they get used to the extra cash, then waste and corruption kicks in, and before you know it its $8 just to cross the east river, then $10, then $20 and they forget what the original toll was even for. Just look around - every bridge and road toll we still have is for something already paid for, and that money goes into waste. Try firing some of the MTA who do nothing but collect paychecks. Start with about half of those who sit around at the 8th ave L/ACE stops supposedly "cleaning" the floors. Do we really need 10 people at 3am sweeping the floors and train cars?

Rolltide23

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:11:23 -0500

Right on Hugo. PETEBFD I will guarantee you in NOT from NYC. He was like 'Im bored here in Iowa, I want some excitement. I know, I will move to NYC b/c its so cool there. Then, I will buy some skinny jeans, and a fixed gear bike, and pretend to be miserable all day'. Well let me offer you a little education. Tolls, here in NY, were established for upkeep of the roads that the toll is on. NYS has taken tolls away, once the purpose was achieved, such as on the Saw Mill North entering Westchester. They are not designed to pay lazy MTA workers healthcare and pensions. Remember the strike? Were you even here? Nobody gave a shit about the MTA workers. And when was the last time a cyclist stopped at a red light? I havent seen it. Yeah, I rode a bike, when I was 10 years old.

gibson3

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:09:48 -0500

Why can't these people take the train to Williamsburg? HUGO MEGO gets off on choking on exhaust fumes and getting cancer. But that doesn't mean I should have to as well. And maybe a five-second glance at Wikipedia will help you realize that high tax rates and neoliberalism have nothing to do with one another. Unless, of course, you're just tossing it around as an all-purpose insult, in which case we're all more than happy to ignore you.

HUGO_MEGO

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 13:34:08 -0500

Stupid hipster neo-libs like PETEBFD and BILLIAMSBURG are actually attacking the drivers instead of the new tax. In their little fantasy hipster world they see a city of walkers and cyclists. These idiots are just as bad as asshole Bloomberg and should be shipped out of my city. Is there ever a tax that a neo-lib would be against? I guess paying more taxes is what gets them off.

Derekasaurus

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 13:25:21 -0500

While I think the MTA is seriously fucked up and never seems to be able to make ends meet no matter what its budget, the dude who's complaining that he can't pick up his wife is a fucktard. Buy an unlimited metro card, for god's sake. And if the subway can't get her home, at least it can get her to Queens or Brooklyn, and he can pick her up there. I hate this pathetic sense of entitlement that drivers have. If you don't like living somewhere where driving is expensive, move the fuck out. Now there may very well be a valid case for not putting up tolls, but this dude isn't it.

abcohen

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 13:04:35 -0500

I think we should just keep charging more to live in NYC... that way you can kill the markets even more for places like queens and brooklyn because no one will be able to swing the travel into and out of Manhattan... so families will have to move to much smaller and more expensive apartments in Manhattan -- GOOD PLANNING!!!

Steven

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 12:20:53 -0500

So much hatred for car drives. Bet most people here don't own a car so they think it doesn't affect them. Some jobs require people to drive a car and some places in the city don't have great mass transit. This city is not all about Manhattan and Brooklyn. How about places in Eastern Queens without any subway service? Anyway the point is the MTA doesn't deserve to collect more money from the mass transit riders. Do you know where this new money will go to? It will go to complete waste.

WesleySnipesAlot

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 12:20:21 -0500

the only way I would find it acceptable for this man to be shuttling his wife would be if she is disabled; but even then, she could use MTA ParaTransit... which would no doubt increase in service by benefiting from the revenue generated by tolls!

Billiamsburg

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 11:57:44 -0500

"That'll make me go back to a life of crime;" Lock up Walter preemptively for this threat. Tell his fat, lazy wife to take the train 3 damn stops. Christ almighty, the lower east side to Williamsburg? She can't handle that commute without him shuttling her cellulite riddled ass around in the SUV he can't afford? That's a 20 minute walk for goddsake. You know, like doctors suggest she should do anyway before her KFC fried varicose veins seize up her heart. Lazy, entitled slobs.

Brainwash

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 11:39:16 -0500

This is like the people who commute 2 or 3 hours to DC because they want their kids to have a yard to play in complaining about gas prices. If you work in a city, live in the city. Ridiculous wastes of fuel going on.

petebfd

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 11:28:15 -0500

fuck drivers. why are we are we supposed to care if you are inconvenienced, forced to pay tolls, or high gas prices? why do you deserve convenience? take the train like the rest of us. i have no sympathy for people who drive in major cities where there are multiple mass transit options. you live in the boroughs? so what! so do i. figure out the bus system. you live in westchester, li, connecticut? tough shit. regional rail. or shut the fuck up and pay your toll for the convenience of sitting in traffic, smogging up our air and endangering bikers and pedestrians with your 2 ton death machines.

Peter

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 11:01:41 -0500

I've got a brilliant idea for the MTA - cut spending! They could probably "re-engineer" at least a third of their staff with no effort at all.

NannyState

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:59:46 -0500

The whole point of this toll is to support other ways for working class New Yorkers to get into Manhattan. Better bus and subway service is what should come of this. Of course, the MTA makes no promises there, do they?

ianmac47

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:48:00 -0500

Tolls are not a tax, they are a user fee.

Pull My Finger

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:29:30 -0500

The MTA could not manage a news stand without losing money.

Ace

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:24:01 -0500

MTA=Bottomless Hole.

chris lee

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:12:25 -0500

Trains are overcrowded. tax, tax,tax!!! everything will be taxed.

UnrepentantFenian

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:11:55 -0500

Didn't we cover this yesterday?

csk

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:00:43 -0500

Walter- Rather than drive your wife to work, get her lazy ass to take the fu*kin'train.