Sep
17
Bloomberg: ‘I don’t have a bridge to sell you’
ByWhile selling the East River bridges to the MTA and tolling them could provide the beleaguered transportation agency with a quick fix to its economic problems and discourage Manhattan-bound traffic, the Bloomberg Administration has rejected the very practical idea. Relying on the faulty assumption that tolling these bridges would simply send more cars through the few remaining free river crossings, Mayor Bloomberg said the bridges are not for sale for the purposes of tolling them.
Opined the mayor, “It is very impractical to only toll a couple of bridges. You would create chaos in people trying to avoid the tolled bridges.” In case after case, this theory espoused by Bloomberg has been proven false, and the city will once eschew an opportunity to help out the MTA financially.
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I don’t see why that’s a faulty assumption. We know now that drivers go out of their way to go to the existing free crossings – why wouldn’t they continue to do so if there were fewer of them? Plenty of drivers from Southern Brooklyn go to the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges rather than pay the toll at the Battery Tunnel; why wouldn’t they just all head to the Brooklyn Bridge if the Manhattan Bridge were tolled?
Ben, I agree with Josh. What cases are you talking about? Here in Sunnyside, we have to deal with a lot of people driving on Queens Boulevard and Van Dam Street to get to the “free” bridge and avoid the tunnel. If the Williamsburg Bridge were no longer “free,” we’d get some of those drivers too. I didn’t think that that was disputed, even by opponents of bridge tolls – just ignored.
I’m a driver in Sunnyside and I always use the free bridges instead of the construction nightmare that is the Triborough bridge… but that isn’t the point. I don’t think Blooomberg wanted this because it would weaken his push for congestion pricing throughout the grid. Even as a driver agree with Bloomberg on this one, congestion pricing is the only solution to this dilemma tolling the bridge crossings for 100 ft of bridge in some cases (The Willis Ave bridge for example) won’t bring in the same kind of money.
Shorter Bloomberg: may way on CP, or the highway.
Literally.