How East River Bridges Stayed Toll-Free Subtitle
New York Times Blog | November 11, 2008

Author
By Sewell Chan

On numerous occasions, politicians have tried to reinstitute tolls on the four bridges — the Brooklyn (completed in 1883), Williamsburg (completed in 1903) and Manhattan and Queensboro (both completed in 1909). After all, the Brooklyn Bridge charged horse-drawn carriages a toll from the time it opened. But by the Depression, the tolls were a thing of the past.

A better proposal would be to toll all the bridges across East and Harlem Rivers, which would compensate for the added traffic from Triboro Bridge with reduced traffic from the Bronx and Upstate.

The idea was to keep the tolls until the bonds were paid off, but Mayor Gaynor removed them in 1911 in the first bridge pandering. Later, Bob Moses had the idea of taking out new bonds before the old ones were paid off, using them to pay for new construction projects and keeping the bridge construction authority in place indefinitely. That’s why the Triboro Bridge and Tunnel Authority is still in existence, as a part of the MTA.

Doing this requires state approval also, but would make sense. What should be done is a swap. The Queensborough, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Billysburgh to the MTA and the non-CBD crossings to the city. Then make the toll something like $16 on the CBD crossings during peak times. I think this is the fairest system for everyone.

There is no way to get around the requirement for state legislature approval. Robert Moses needed to go through the legislature, too; he was just a lot more adept at it than anyone around today, especially Mayor Bloomberg.

I’m pretty sure about that Gary, and the lawyers are too because if the city tried to do it they’d sue.

There is a toll booth that charges both ways, and it’s stationed on the Brooklyn side. I live several blocks from it. The problem is, where would you put them for the bridges?

And who holds title to the East River bridges? If the City owns them and gives them to the MTA, could the MTA then add tolls at will?

I’m asking these questions because I don’t necessarily know the answers, but if I learned one thing from The Power Broker, it’s that there are surprising ways of getting things done in New York.

Lastly, I find it all pretty ironic. My favored plan when the CP commission was holding hearings was tolling the Harlem and East River crossings. And here we are.

PETER – Anything which creates massive queues of cars in Brooklyn is a non-starter . . . there is no place to put the cars. It has to be a booth-less system or it won’t work.

Katherine, I can assure you that there are plenty of people that commute in using the bridges . . . and that many of them go out of there way to use the bridges and avoid the tunnels, which they have to pay for. I live in a neighborhood that is impacted by that choice.