Drivers Protest Verrazano Bridge Toll with Pennies

Tolls keep the island's overdevelopment in check.

umm have you bin to Staten island lately.

If they don't want to pay more for the tolls, fine by me, as long as the MTA starts charging everyone to ride the SIRR.

i believe sirr stands for Staten island rail road, does this train even belong to the mta anymore? and people do pay for the dame train when they get off at the ferry and getting on from the ferry.and unfortunately for Si residence who make a living off the island and have no choice to drive to work to make a living and we cant even get home from any bridge without paying to get home, pay to get back to my house that i already pay taxes for, pay to get back home to my family, wow we get half price big fucking deal.the vz should be free for si residents. far rockaway residents get a free ride they don't pay anything when they leave there island or go back to it why is that.

Isn't this a non-sanctioned protest? If these people had been protesting the Iraq War or had been riding bicycles, they'd all be in jail with cracked skulls by now, but since they're all cousins with a police office named Vinnie, I guess it's okay to be an idiot protestor.

Yay generalizing!

$ 11 bucks is a hell of a lot of money to cross a damned bridge!

And weren't bridge tolls originally set up to pay for the construction costs of bridges?

Since the Verrazano was finished in 1965, I'm sure it's been paid for by now!

"And weren't bridge tolls originally set up to pay for the construction costs of bridges?"

That's an urban myth that's been debunked many times (even Brian Lehrer addressed it), but web forums like this keep it alive.

Is it just me or does that photo show a Mercedes SUV with "No Toll Hike" soaped in the rear window? Pity the poor Mercedes SUV owner!

Tolls keep the island's overdevelopment in check.

If they don't want to pay more for the tolls, fine by me, as long as the MTA starts charging everyone to ride the SIRR.

The tolls on Verrazano Narrows Bridge is criminal. The poor people of Staten Island have been suffering for decades! You cannot return too SI without having to pay a toll from either NJ or Brooklyn. The tolls on SI have a negative effect on the economic development and property values of Staten Island. Every Staten Islander should be angry at the tolls.

Statehood for Staten Island! Why should L.I. be the only ones fed up with taxes, tolls and fees that ruin their automotive lifestyles?

They should totally continue to protest by boycotting this bridge and staying in Staten Island forever!

It was a pretty ineffective protest, doing nothing but inconveniencing other people crossing the bridge. As the article says, the toll collectors didn't even bother to count the pennies, so it didn't even inconvenience them. At the end of the day, somebody had to dump them along with all of the other change collected into a machine to be counted.

A boycott of the bridge would make more sense.

You can't boycott the bridge, how are you going to get around? Drive to Jersey and through Manhattan?

$11 is too much for any river crossing, even the river Styx!

I hope they do protest. Anyone that thinks Staten islanders (or Brooklynites who cross the VZ) are jerks for not wanting to pay $11 is just looking to be a douche.

So much hate for Staten Islanders here, and for what?

Interestingly enough almost 99% of all other bridges and tunnels in the entire USA are free. So we NY'ers are paying 6% city income tax and bridge and tunnel taxes on top of the state and other city taxes as well. Bridge and tunnel tolls are double taxation and just a way to extract more money for waste, and for those on SI they are penalized even more since they really don't get much in return for their 6% city income taxes except having to pay yet again just to come and go. Before long, with every tax and toll increasing with no limit in sight, they will just be taking our whole paycheck for the 'privilege' of living here. Suburbia in some other state looks better every day.

Suburbia in some other state looks better every day.

In other words... Staten Island?

dude, almost 99%? so like 98.x%, so you have the data to back this up? talking out of your ass only works when you use more believable numbers like 23%.

Ok, so instead of talking out of my ass, as of 2007 there were 597,896 bridges in the USA (Bureau of Transportation Statistics website), and of those 139 were toll bridges. Now math is not my strong point but I believe 597,575/597896=99.976%

A majority of those bridges are what the average person would call an "overpass" or maybe a small bridge over a small river.

Those bridges are nowhere near the size and cost of maintenance for the Verrazano.

don't let the toll booth hit you on the way out.

He should be addressing why East River bridges remain free, but then he'd float the whole motorist-solidarity-thing.

Yeah, that will teach them. Make it more of a pain in the ass for all of the other SIers trying to get off the island, while you pay with pennies, meanwhile, the guy manning the booth still get's paid the same, the city still generates the same amount of revenue. Maybe those genius protestors should just burn SI down, to teach everyone else a lesson.

this is a great idea, from now on all my spare change, pennies, nickels, dimes, etc will be submitted to the bridges. Each time I receive a parking ticket, which seems like every month under bloomberg, I will go in and pay in pennies.

Say,are these the Teabaggers??

DUR DUR DUR DUR EVERYTHING IN LIFE SHOULD COME FOR FREE

The toll is only collected one way on the bridge, so it compares to the Mid-town tunnel, RFK bridge, and Brooklyn Battery tunnel

Viva Triboro!

You know, I should've thought of that....I take back my previous comment about the toll being excessive. However, I stand by my remark about Staten Islanders' insufferable persecution complex.

Staten Island residents pay 5.48 with EZ-Pass. Not so bad. There's always the SI Ferry -- free.

Or they could take a local MTA bus over the very same bridge to Bay Ridge for $2.00.

They sure can...if they live within walking distance of those particular local bus routes (there's two) and are willing to deal with the infrequent, unreliable schedules and slow service. And if they're going to Bay Ridge, or maybe somewhere in Brooklyn along the N train, and those areas only.

I am in no way defending this selfish stunt or Staten Islanders' silly conceit that they get shortchanged from the city (it's 7% of the population...what do these people expect?), but public transit on SI is a joke, and anyone who says otherwise either a) doesn't know what decent public transit is or b) has a Jesus-like amount of patience.

Seriously, let's say I want to from, I don't know, Park Slope to Westerleigh, SI: I'd have to take the N train to 86th, and transfer to the S53 bus, take that to Clove Rd. and transfer to the S62. Or, I could take the N to Whitehall St., catch the Ferry, and then take the S62 down Victory Blvd. Doing this would take an hour and a half if - and this hardly ever happens - I make all the connections, AND I'm traveling during peak hours. More likely, it would take two to two-and-a-half hours.

Or, I could drive. Even accounting for traffic and parking, this would take no more than forty-five minutes, and probably less.

Look, Staten Island is tiny compared to the rest of NYC and the population is not dense. That's the reason it's like this. And the public transit is generally adequate at getting people to and from day jobs in Manhattan. But the idea that someone who lives on SI can just get on a bus or the ferry and go anywhere else in the city, no problems, is absurd.

FYI . . . The N train doesn't go to Bay Ridge. It's the R.

Good for them! I applaud their efforts and hope they pay with pennies every day for the rest of the year.

it's definitely a dick move, but i kinda like it cuz they have a point. $11 to cross a bridge WTF?!

Isn't the ferry still free?

You can't put your car on the ferry.

That's the CASH price. Anyone who has to cross that bridge on a daily basis is going to have an EZ pass and pay $9.14 and Staten Island whiners who have to cross that bridge on a daily basis are going to pay $5.48.

That Staten Island price is BS. Its much cheaper than the RFK and midtown tunnel because it is only a one way toll.

Round trip on RFK or midtown tunnel is $9.14. Round trip for SI residents on the Verrazano is $5.48

How did that happen? Queens and Bronx residents get hosed, but SI gets sweetheart deal. I can think of a few demographic explanations for that.

Am I reading this correctly? I went to MTA site.

http://www.mta.info/bandt/traffic/btmain.htm

There are free options for taking your car between every other borough, though. I can go between any two points in the other four boroughs and not pay a dime for tolls if I didn't want to.

Not saying the stunt was worth it (they actually paid almost double the SI rate just to pay in pennies) but to say that we get a sweetheart deal is ridiculous. Remember, you don't have to take the Triboro/RFK bridge - there's the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queensboro, and Williamsburg. Staten Island does not have a two-way free option for vehicles, hence the "preferential treatment."

>> How did that happen? Queens and Bronx residents get hosed, but SI gets sweetheart deal. I can think of a few demographic explanations for that. >>>

Sure you can.

thanks mr. obvious, i read the whole article. this line in particular is what i was agreeing with:

"We are human beings, not bank accounts you can constantly draw from."

can you dig it?

No, I don't.

awww, curmudgeonry. hope that works out for ya champ.

These people are whiners and you support them? They only pay $5.14 one way with EZ Pass. These people are assholes. And if they don't have an EZ Pass then they obviously don't take the bridge enough that 11 dollars one way is going to kill them.

Next, let's protest the MTA fare increase by mugging people on the N train!

Staten Island is LUCKY they are even considered part of NYC. If you look at a map, Staten Island makes more sense as part of NEW JERSEY.

But Staten Island is a cultural outpost of Brooklyn. Most of its residents are transplant Brooklynites.

Don't try & pin SI on Jersey. That's all you NY.

dude they don't even want to be a borough. they pay all the same taxes with none of the benefits.

Well I wish the state would cut them loose, no love lost. The MTA would no longer have to be responsible for the MTA Staten Island Railway and that would mean more money for the subway in the other four boroughs.

"You didn't think I was going to make it easy for them [to count], did you?"

This is why everyone thinks Staten Islanders are douches. Tear the bridge down then I say. Fuck em.

Ahh, disrupting traffic for everyone else. Nice.

Compared to the tolls on other local bridges, the toll on the V-N is excessive, but I'm really sick and tired of my home borough's persecution complex.