Comments on: What Ravitch hath wrought

By: The Declining New York City Power Center « Politics as Puppetry

The Declining New York City Power Center « Politics as Puppetry — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:01:04 +0000

[...] problem with eliminating term limits – it creates an inability to pick hard political battles like really saving the MTA when constantly in the running for a third or fourth term. Regardless of the high re-election [...]

By: rhywun

rhywun — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 04:23:10 +0000

Oh, there’s something I want to call it, but it’s not that. Nor is it printable here.

By: Cap'n Transit

Cap'n Transit — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 02:52:29 +0000

Gianaris has had ample time to figure out that the people he’s defending aren’t working class. If he and these other jerks really haven’t figured it out by now, they never will.

Of course, they could be lying. They are politicians, after all.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:20:38 +0000

Of course it will be tossed into the general treasury, after the downstate region gets first dibs.

Call it the cost of having all the statewide political leaders come from the New York City area.

By: Marc Shepherd

Marc Shepherd — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:34:47 +0000

Actually, the Ravitch report proposes tolling the Harlem River bridges at the same price as a subway fare. That seems very fair to me: you pay the same, regardless of which travel mode you choose.

The large city-owned East River bridges are a different story, since they’re on essentially the same size and scale as the MTA-owned crossings. There’s no rational basis for the Brooklyn Bridge and the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to cost anything different.

The original reason for tolling the Battery Tunnel (and all of the MTA crossings) was to pay off the bonds that funded their construction. But those bonds have long since been retired. The only reason they still have tolls is: 1) to pay for maintenance; and 2) to subsidize mass transit. And it is the identical reason for putting tolls on the bridges that currently don’t have them.

By: joe

joe — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:51:24 +0000

si residents pay like 4.80 to cross from brooklyn to SI using the ezpass discount (since there is only a 1 way toll).
why not let all NYC residents pay ~2.40 to cross all crossings to or from manhattan. that would only be slightly more than the subway cost.

seems easiest and fairest to me

By: rhywun

rhywun — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:11:14 +0000

From the Times:

“By itself, the payroll tax, which is projected to generate $1.5 billion a year, would plug the authority’s budget gap next year and provide hundreds of millions of dollars more to help the state and city close their own budget shortfalls.”

What happened to the “lockbox”? Does anyone really think this tax won’t be tossed into the general treasury? Can someone explain to me why I should pay (more) tax to alleviate problems upstate, who won’t be paying this tax?!

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:50:45 +0000

I continue to find it extremely odd that some Queens, Brooklyn, SI & Bronx pols insist that making a comparatively small number of their constituents pay to occasionally cross a waterway in an automobile is unfair, while the vast number of their voters pay 40 times a month to cross, both ways, on the Subway.

Ive said it before and will say it again, there should a l w a y s be one toll-free lane at every intracity crossing, so that if you think that it is unfair to pay a toll, you are free (as it were) to queue up at rush hour and wait a while to save a few bucks.

I think the recently-discussed “Free Manhattan Crosstown Bus” idea should be made part of the Ravitch Plan too, if only as a spoonful of sugar.