Real smart move right before all the summer traffic congestion begins, however much they tell us it's planned out, traffic is already a nightmare at this crossing, way to go!

i had a few in me, and um i thought the light was green - to go pay the toll, but it was red and i couldn't go through there, and i smacked the fuckin' thing.

Awesome. You keep driving drunk and maybe next time you can kill someone. Keep your hopes up, you can do it. Plug away.

oh i-i'm sorry mrs. gravel. i'll pay for the window out of my allowance.

$2.5 million and a year? Just how many unionized assholes does it take to unscrew a light bulb?!

Ten. One to unscrew the bulb and the other nine to claim disability.

The fee for going through Satan Island should be turned into a subsidy, financed by the State.

Give every truck, car, bus, etc. US $10.00 to go around the productive part of New York, and not pollute, congest or kill the residents of the productive part of New York.

Satan Island. Hahahahahahaha! OMG, you just make that up? OMG, so funny!

I'll miss driving through them (Brooklyn Bound, obviously).

pardon my ignorance, but if one way tolling was mandated by Congress, why are we still seeing them in Whitestone, Triboro and Throgs Neck Bridges?

Midtown/Battery tunnels, I understand (with all the parallel free bridges), but the Queens-Bronx crossings?

It's not the Triboro, it's the RFK Bridge.

Not even those who work for the MTA call the Triborough the RFK...

Such a waste to spend all that money re-naming the bridge.

Would have been better off spending it on keeping the bridge better maintained. What shitty roadways!

I think it was re-named for Patterson as a way to push his then-Senate nominee, Caroline Kennedy.

See my explanation above @7:48.

All bridges and tunnels in NYC have double tolls in one direction, and free going the opposite direction.

Most have the double toll when ENTERING NYC and are free EXITING.

VNB is the only portal where the toll is reversed, causing the fiscal, pollution and congestion problems listed above.

Senator Schmuck Shumer promised he would reverse this discrimination when elected in 1998, but the only thing that prick reversed was his promise - as soon as he was elected, because he wanted SI votes.

Well you do have one thing wrong, you can't avoid a toll if you come through Staten Island. The Goethals, Bayonne, and Outerbridge are the only ways on to Staten Island and all 3 have tolls coming in. That's how all their bridges work. Free outbound, but tolled inbound on to the island. Thus there is no actual "free route" into the city from Jersey. Now is it an issue for all outbound traffic from the city via the tunnels or the GWB? I'd say yes, and I've been guilty of doing it myself.

Okay. Clear things up.

All PANYNJ bridges/tunnels are one-way tolls.

All MTA bridges/tunnels are two-way tolls, with the exception of the Verrazano.

The Verrazano is special because Guy V. Molinari added the one-way toll in a 1986 transportation bill. This kept on getting renewed until 1995, when Susan Molinari successfully made it permanent.

Correct.

However, to start getting down to details, it was actually a six-month "experiment" in 1986 by then governor, Mario Cuomo.

S.I. residents were complaining that the fumes from vehicles waiting to pay the toll were coming into their homes and Guy Molinari got Cuomo to enact it.

The toll reversal was continued for several years until 1990 when then NJ Senator Frank Lautenberg placed it in as an obscure provision in a Federal Transportation bill at the urging of S.I. Boro Prez Guy Molinari, who wanted to ensure it became more institutionalized. Why Lautenberg in NJ?

He claimed he was worried about excess traffic backing up into NJ!

Then Guy's annoying daughter, Susan, enacted it permanently.

Shmuck Schumer promised in 1998 when he ran against powerful incumbent Al D'Amato to reverse it, hoping at the time to secure the votes of beleaguered NW Brooklyn and lower Manhattan residents. He promised he would have it repealed. He lied. Within two weeks, he switched his position.

To answer barryap @ 8:11: after Schumer won big time in Bklyn and Manhattan, he believed that he had those Dems in his pocket. To protect his ass in later elections, he sold out to Republican S.I., the first of many of his perfidious deeds as Senator.

To placate the voters that he betrayed, he then promised that once the Dems controlled Congress he would make sure it was reversed. For years, it has been a Dem Congress, yet Schumer still panders to the Republicans in Staten Island to secure his seat.

That doesn't make sense. If Schumer was angling for SI votes, he wouldn't have promised to reverse the tolls as part of his campaign.

learn2politics.

I believe the Henry Hudson Bridge also tolls in both directions.

Right, there are exceptions to the one-way tolling.

But the VNB is the only crossing that was treated specially, in order to placate Staten islanders and to screw Brooklynites and Manhattanites, and just about everyone else in the city as a result of their finagling.