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In order for one of the most controversial suggestions of Thursday's Ravitch Commission report--tolls at all of the now-free East River crossings--to become a reality, it appears right there may be too many political tolls for them to become a reality.
Despite Governor Paterson's support, it's the State Legislature as well as the City Council that in all likelihood will need to take action. Both would have to initiate moves to untangle legal obstacles currently in place that would prevent the city from passing over ownership of the bridges to the MTA in order for the Authority to impose the tolls as a means to raise revenue.
And thus far the primary voices of local pols involved with the issue have been ones coming out swinging against the bridge tolling plan. Yesterday on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge, a group of officials led by City Controller William Thompson expressed their disapproval for the proposal--and they were ready to let the zingers fly. "I don't have a coat on today cause I'm hot about these recommendations," State Senator Kevin Parker said as he called the plan a regressive tax. Meanwhile Assemblyman Jose Peralta lent his take, "It is a fare hike. And if anyone believe that it's not a fare hike, then I have a bridge I can sell you."
Of course, the major wildcard is Mayor Bloomberg, who thus far appears to be remaining relatively neutral on the matter. While Ravitch's suggestions draw an obvious parallel to mayor's prized plan for congestion pricing that died on the State Assembly floor after being fought for tooth and nail by the mayor, he appears prepared to take a backseat role to the Legislature and City Council as this round gets underway.
Even Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign doesn't sound like he's up to fight for the tolls as the primary means to force drivers to help carry the burden of the MTA's financial woes. He told the press, “There are other ways for drivers to pay. If bridge tolls turn out to be a nonstarter, it doesn’t mean the conversation is over. It means you have to figure out another way to do it.”
Photograph of the Brooklyn Bridge by *reesie on Flickr
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They've talked about this for years but nothing ever happens. Can you imagine the massive tie ups at the toll plaza or a car breaking down. It would be utter chaos.
They're not going to build Toll Plazas. They'll use some Orwellian license-plate-monitoring system or EZPass or something. Transferring some percentage of tolls to a private company / mafia to be sure.
The real philosophical problem I see is this: this issue doesn't just affect NYC. If you put a toll on all the East River bridges there literally won't be any way for Long Islanders to leave Long Island in a car without paying a toll. I don't know why, but that strikes me as sinister somehow. A commuter tax strikes me as a much better solution.
This is The MTA's version of an anthrax scare. They know they can't ever pass these ridiculous bridge toll taxes but the point is that it's debated and talked about instead of their fare hikes. Then when the fare hikes come around they'll be like "it was either fare hikes or tolls on bridges, aren't you glad you settled for fare hikes?"
#2, not just the folks who live in Nassau and Suffolk, but those who live in Queens and Brooklyn and already pay city taxes would then not be able to travel around the city itself without hitting some ridiculous toll, effectively cutting Brooklyn and Queens residents from the rest of the city. Maybe Brooklyn and Queens should just secede since they're being cut off anyway. Let's see how well Manhattan does without their taxes.
I like Thompson's idea of a weight-based registration fee system. In a place like New York, maybe it would discourage people from owning all those unecessatily massive SUVs. Maybe we'd have less problems if we had smaller cars on the road. It certainly couldn't hurt the pollution to push people toward smaller cars.
someone mentioned this previously, but what is so wrong about letting the MTA go bankrupt and then reorganizing it into a more efficient agency? This way all the real core issues can be addressed instead of throwing more of our money at them and watching it disappear every year.
#6 The MTA isn't a private agency and letting it go bankrupt would reduce the City's borrowing ability.
The MTA is not a very transparent organization. Our city may be better served to completely break it up and run each part of it separately. To ensure coordination between the branches outside consultants can be brought in, say on a yearly basis, to make up a report. It would be each branches responsibility to use that report to upgrade it's inner workings and then the consultants would prepare a grade on each branch, say in 8-10months time after it was originally released.
@Holytriple, I do live in Queens. And as far as anyone in City Hall knows, Queens is part of New Jersey unless they're talking to a private developer. We get nothing from the city -- shitty roads and crappy parks (*) and whenever there is a drop of rain, the entire E line is shut off. Frankly I wouldn't mind secession. My taxes would go down or go toward services I actually receive... or at least to Queens Borough Hall corruption instead of City Hall corruption.
@Babyhitler -- for once I agree with you. I believe that the MTA is run by Jabba the Hutt.
(* For fairness sake, the new pool/ice rink in Flushing Meadows Corona Park is pretty amazing... still wish they'd fix the NYS Pavilion though.)
It amazes me that in all of the conversations going around the web and radio about this issue, no Brooklynite or Queens(ian?) dare mention the plight of Staten Island, seemingly out of fear of guilt by assocation as another outer borough. We Staten Islander have had to pay to get off the island for years. Even though the ferry is free, you have to pay for the SIRR or bus or parking to get there. When the Verrazano was built, the tolls were only supposed to be up long enough to pay for the construction of the bridge itself. That was over forty years ago. And our express bus fare is supposed to rise from $5 to $7.50! I am a big proponent of public transportation and know that if I can find a way to rearrange my life and manage to not rely on my car from even the most outer of outer boroughs, I'm sure my fellow NYers in Queens and Brooklyn can find a way too. And really, worrying about paying tolls should be the least motivating factor for all those on Long Island to take public transport, as such low-lying coastal towns as Brooklyn and Queens have a lot to lose to climate change and rising sea levels.
Has anyone done a serious evaluation of where the actual tax and other revenues come from boro by boro and where the money goes to boro by boro?
@Snoopy -- if the outer boroughs ever found out what they get for their tax dollars, there would be rioting in the streets.
Anyway, most of our tax money winds up lining the pockets of the Gambino family.
Or we can talk about the elephant in the room: a certain great big fat Obama pulling into the toll plaza with $700 billion in stimulus money. Thanks to Washington, the MTA won't have to smell their own farts for the next four years.
Most of the constituency in Queens is here illegally anyway. They don't pay a fucking dime in taxes. Take a leisurely stroll down Roosevelt avenue and poll the "taxpayers"...
Hey whitecastlerock, sales taxes are taxes too and pretty unavoidable. And a lot of illegals still pay income taxes (under false identities) and they certainly ride the MTA and pay tolls.
They don't vote though.
@edward_g_robincat How do you know these illegals file under false identities? You keep kidding yourself.
Not all, but some. I know this for a fact from a friend at the U.S. State Dep't. Go kid yourself yourself.
I live in Brooklyn. Like most Brooklynites, I have to pay when I leave the island, even on a "free" East River bridge. The reason? I, like most of my Brooklyn neighbors, don't have a car and I have to pay to ride the subway.
This makes it hard for me to swallow it when drivers, who we are all subsidizing anyway, claim they should be able to drive all over the place for free.
I dont think that people with cars feel they should be able to drive all over the place for free. It's about what is already being paid. The cost of driving into manhattan is already costly in terms of traffic, parking and sometimes tolls. There are really two issues here... First, we have to recognize that once something is started it will not end. Like most of the bridges and tolled roads throughout this country.. they always start out as being temporary low-cost tolls to pay for the cost of construction, only to stay out of a necessity to maintain wear and tear... and then the increases start as the sole purpose of the tolls become cash cows to pay for other things. Second, tolling the East River and (god-forbid) Harlem/Hudson River crossings is just congestion pricing in disguise. They cant even estimate what the generated income would be because there's no telling what the impact would be on the economy. You're talking about human behavior... and that's very unpredictable. How many residents and commercial entities will move away? How much crime will occur? Will we see an increase in license plate theft like in London? The list goes on but i wont...
I can tell that most people dont remember or know the history of the bridges and tunnels of NYC and Long Island. The sad fact is that the MTA has gotten out of control much like the way GM has.
If you look at the MTA's 2007 budget you'll see they took in 5.7 billion dollars in fares and tolls. The biggest expenditure in their budget is.... PAYROLL.. basic payroll was 3.8 billion!! Then add overtime-482 million, Healthcare-617 million, pensions-851 million, then the one that really gets me "Other Fringe Benefits"-445 million. That's half a billion on Fringe Benefits. Theres no indication as to what those fringe benefits are... but i think they could be eliminated if they are extras or perks. The total cost of Labor comes to $$$6.2 billion, or $8.5 billion if you add in non-labor costs like power, fuel, insurance.. etc. Now the printed budget actually has a grand total of $11.533 Billion which includes some other things outside the scope of this comment. Im just concentrating on the 6.2 billion and the fact that the basic payroll projections are expected to go from 3.8 billion in '07 to 4.2 by the end of this year ('08). And its expected to steadily increase year after year!! Throw in the billions spent on improvements and i dont see how this (company?) operates.
If the solutions provided almost seem like not enough to fix the problem. Thats because its not enough. Even if you did a onetime bailout and gave them 15 billion dollars.. they'd be in the red again within two years, just based on their payroll. At this rate, how could the MTA provide the services needed even if you got everyone to take the trains and buses? You'd have to increase the already swelling payroll to serve the increase in ridership and lets not forget the new riders who will flee the bridge tolls.
The way i see it.. the TWU is going to have to make some major and i mean major concessions. Even after the MTA cleans it's own house and gets rid of the favors and pork. The TWU will more than likely have to take a pay cut or pay freeze or both. I fear that may not even cure the problem.
NYC is at a crossroads... There's hope with Obama talking Infrastructure. But help from the feds more than likely wont be much. We tend to forget that we live in NY state. Which means any hand outs will have to be shared. Personally, i think its time for NYC to break away and become its own state. There's just too many people and its growing everyday.. i wont tell you the growth estimates. Suffice to say its not going to get easier walking about. We need the tax monies collected here to stay here. That's really the only way out of the mess NYC and the MTA faces.
I'll stop here :)
@18
I hear you. I haven't taken a close look at the MTA figures but I don't have any trouble believing that it does pan out this way.
NY seems to have a union-backed gridlock that only assures the continuing deterioration of infrastructure. I don't feel Albany does anyone any favors, NY state politics seem to be almost completely opaque to the average person. It's not a good state of affairs.
I was born and raised in B'klyn and was always told that the moment a toll would be charged/collected to traverse the span to Manhattan - Brooklyn would AUTOMATICALLY be legally enact secession and no longer be in NYC and that this is in the original paperwork...