Comments on: Planning to charge for the Staten Island Railway

By: ferryboi

ferryboi — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:13:24 +0000

And you wont see any organized movement to build it, with the current state of the MTA’s finaces being what they are. In the meantime, SI has to make do with what it has.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:15:55 +0000

There was a plan for a subway from Staten Island to Brooklyn. The stub tunnels in Brooklyn are still sitting there. Yet I don’t see any organized movement to actually build it.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:13:26 +0000

Yep, this is a test line for tap-cards. If it works, they’ll start rolling it out on everything.

By: Edward

Edward — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:14:27 +0000

Yes, except Staten Island doesn’t HAVE a subway to the other boros, and the express bus costs $5.50, more than double the cost of a subway ride. And yes, the VN wasn’t built for free, it was paid for by bonds that have long since been cashed in. Ask and Staten Islander if they’d be happy to have some of the toll money they pay on the VN go toward a subway connection to Brooklyn.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:10:14 +0000

The Verrazano wasn’t free to build. And no, there’s no free route from Queens to the Bronx, unless you want to detour through 3rd Avenue and Queensboro. In all outer boroughs, the easiest way to avoid tolls is to ride the bus or the subway.

By: ferryboi

ferryboi — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:46:45 +0000

“Just as he (Giuliani) shut down the landfill for them, with decades of capacity remaining, and sent the Sanitation budget through the roof trucking the garbage to NJ” — or the other boros could have pulled their fair share and taken responsibility for their own garbage, insteading of breaking the bank and trucking it to NJ.

BTW, Staten Island got creative and now sends its trash out-of-state via rail. Meanwhile, Manhattan has been fighting furiously not to have garbage transfer stations on its waterfront, whereby garbage can be sent via barge. But of course, those selfish Staten Islanders, who took every single ounce of NYC garbage for 50 years, thereby ruining a beautifuln natural marsh area, are the ones to blame.

By: ferryboi

ferryboi — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:36:44 +0000

Funny Bob that, when SIers were paying full tolls on the V-N Bridge, or were paying FOUR fares per day on the subway/bus and then ANOTHER fare on the SI Ferry, the rest of the city didn’t exactly come to our defense and complain. And though other MTA (TBTA) Bridges like the Whitestone and Triboro/RFK charge tolls, residents in the Bronx and Queens have FREE options (Willis Ave, Queensboro, Brooklyn Bridges, etc) whereas SI has no other option. Paying even $5 to drive one lousy mile to Brookln is outrageous.

And how exactly does the “circle” truck route inconvenience the rest of the city? A truck entering Manhattan via Brooklyn is less convenient than a truck entering Manhattan via NJ? If trucks “exit the city via Lower Manhattan” do they not pay tolls? Your “circular” reasoning makes no sense.

By: bob

bob — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:49:45 +0000

“Along these lines why is every bridge connecting the boroughs free, while the Verazanno is $11.”

Firstly, the other TBTA bridges connecting the boros have tolls (Bronx-Whitestone, Triboro, etc) so “every” bridge is not free.

Second, SI residents always conviently forget to mention they get a very heavily discounted toll. They don’t pay $11.00. And that 11 is because all other TBTA crossings are tolled both ways, but SI pushed a provision through the legislature mandating a one-way toll test (that never ends). So it’s twice the one-way fare. And because of the direction it’s collected it gives an incentive to trucks to do a circle route via SI, Brooklyn and exit the city via Lower Manhattan, increasing truck traffic in Manhattan. So many of us are suffering for SI convenience.

By: bob

bob — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:43:37 +0000

No one took the seccession seriously – it couldn’t happen without approval of the state legislature. It was made free as a reward for providing the margin of victory for Rudy to become mayor. Just as he shut down the landfill for them, with decades of capacity remaining, and sent the Sanitation budget through the roof trucking the garbage to NJ. (Look at the city trucks – note how many have NJDEP permits on the side.)

By: Aaron

Aaron — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:06:29 +0000

I’m responding to Joe, who in fact asserted that SI residents are entitled to free service on the SI ferry. I don’t disagree with what you say, I think charging a fare for the ferry would be an expensive proposition whose farebox recovery would be fantastically low since I suspect well above 90% of ferry riders have transferred to or from another MTA service. But I definitely find fault with Joe’s assertion that SI residents are entitled to free transit because they’re far from Manhattan, or that the Narrows were created in an Albany-based conspiracy to isolate SI residents who have “no representation,” whatever that meant. You’re exactly right – there’s a lot of people who are far from Manhattan.