Once upon a time, Robert Moses wanted a bridge, and generally, whatever Moses wanted, Moses got. This bridge was to span the New York Harbor from the battery to Brooklyn. It would have drastically changed the way the waterfront looked and would have done away with Battery Park and Castle Clinton.

In New York City, few outside of the man with the power wanted a bridge. Park protestors agitated for a tunnel, and those who wanted to save the historic Castle Clinton called for one as well. Moses did not listen, and it took an act of the president to turn the bridge into the tunnel. When First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt objected to the way the tunnel would ruin the view of the harbor, her husband spuriously, that the Brooklyn-Battery Bridge would interfere with national safety because the Brooklyn Navy Yard was upstream from the tunnel.

Even though both the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges were seaward from the navy yard as well, the executive order won the day, and today, we commemorate the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Today, approximately 44,000 vehicles pass through the 1.7-mile long tunnel on a daily basis. Yet, the origins of the tunnel were arduous.

The NYC Tunnel Authority started construction in October 1940, but the same government that quelled the threat of a bridge ordered a halt to the project in 1942 when the war effort required steel, iron and construction materials. In 1945, Moses’ Triborough Bridge Authority took control of the project, and Moses replaced Ole Signstad with Ralph Smillie as the engineer in charge. Today, the tunnel with its three ventilation plants sees its air recycled every 90 seconds, and what was once a 35-cent toll one way is now $5.50 for those without an E-ZPass.

The tunnel, once featured in Men in Black as the home to the organization tasked with tracking and policing aliens on Earth, isn’t getting a grand celebration for its 60th birthday. The MTA has, however, posted an album of old pictures to commemorate the event. Take a peek:

Cars heading to Manhattan enter the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel in the 1950s. (Courtesy of MTA
Bridges and Tunnels Special Archive.)

Earlier this afternoon, MTA CEO and Chair Jay Walder along with new MTA Bridges & Tunnels President Jim Ferrara spoke to reporters about this agency’s plans for budget reductions and cost savings. It was another in the MTA’s ongoing attempts to close a massive budget hole, and as Bridges & Tunnels is the only agency that turns a profit, I was intrigued to hear about the authority’s plans for it.

First a brief history lesson: When the MTA formed, the city had to find a way to fund transit, and they eyed the huge surpluses at Robert Moses’ Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority as a key source of revenue. So as part of a move to depose Moses from power and find a solution to the subway’s constant annual budget deficits, Triborough and the New York City Transit Authority were merged under the umbrella of the MTA. Since 1968, the various bridges and tunnels under MTA control have continually turned a profit, and those dollars helped allow the MTA to kee subway and bus fares at levels that made the system accessible to all.

With that in mind, the MTA doesn’t need to have the Bridges & Tunnels division save money. It is still, after all, running at a surplus. But by asking the departments to streamline work shifts and operational efficiencies, the trickle-down effect results in more money for the region’s bus and rail networks. So today, Bridges & Tunnels announced approximately $10 million in additional savings for 2010 to bring its total annual savings for this year up to $20 million, and those savings are projected to be $25 million next year.

While some of the savings are rather technical — the eight preventative maintenance shops will be centralized into four shops — one key area involves maintenance work schedules. Currently, Bridges & Tunnels workers are on the clock from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. even though the agency doesn’t perform road work during rush hour. Instead, since most non-emergency repairs are completed at night, the workers earn overtime during the late-night shifts. To combat the spread of overtime, the agency is shifting workers from the daytime to a new 11 p.m.-7 a.m. shift.

With this new shift, the agency will reduce overtime by approximately $4.8 million, and they did so within the contours of their current labor contracts. Workers will have the chance to bid on overnight shifts that carry a 10 percent bump in salary, and daytime workers will, by and large, lose out on the overnight time-and-a-half shifts. It is, said Ferrara and Walder, a more efficient way of doing business.

On the one hand, this is a common-sense moved designed to combat the spread of overtime, and it highlights how Jay Walder is intent on streamlining MTA operations. On the other, it’s a duh-worthy moment that makes me question how the MTA had been doing business beforehand. Still, these savings and efficiencies are better late than never, and even if the dollars are small based on the overall deficit, every little bit is a step forward.

Lost in the discussion about East River tolls and congestion pricing is the great irony of the MTA. Since the tolled bridges into and out of Manhattan are such cash cows, New York City’s public transit network is kept afloat by the same forces many public transit advocates would like to limit.

The history of MTA Bridges and Tunnels is one of Robert Moses. He ushered through the construction of the Triborough Bridge in the 1933s, and over the years, Moses used his position as head of the Triborough Bridge Authority to consolidate toll revenues while increasing his reach.

By the 1960s, Moses was gone; the city’s bridges and tunnels continued to generate large amounts of surplus cash; and the city’s subways were teetering on the brink of collapse. Hence, the MTA was born, and now the city’s bridges and tunnels subsidize mass transit to the tune of $700-$900 million a year.

But what happens when New Yorkers stop driving? That is the question posed by Pete Donohue in a Daily News article today:

The number of drivers using MTA bridges and tunnels has fallen for 12 straight months, another troubling threat to the agency’s bottom line, officials said Wednesday. “I can’t say I remember anything like that,” MTA Bridges and Tunnels Acting President David Moretti said.

The latest statistics show drivers took 25 million trips over bridges and through tunnels last month, down 1.3 million – or 4.8% – from October 2007.

Much of the 12-month slide can be attributed to high gas prices. But last month’s downturn may be the result of commuters no longer having jobs to go to in Manhattan, officials said. Traffic at the MTA’s four Manhattan crossings was down on average about 7% from September to October, even though gas prices had fallen, Moretti said.

Right now, since the fares were raised in March, revenues aren’t down, but if these trends continue into next year and beyond, the MTA will need to raise even more cash. In that regard, I wonder how a congestion pricing plan would come into play. While a congestion fee with guaranteed revenue heading to the MTA could generate upwards of $400 million a year, would enough cars be discouraged from driving to impact the bottom line for the MTA Bridges and Tunnels division?

As congestion pricing plans would allow for tolls to be deducted from the charge to enter the Central Business District, I doubt the MTA would see a decrease in revenue from the bridges and tunnels. But as the economy walks a dangerous tightrope, it will be interesting to see how one of the authority’s biggest sources of revenue fares. Little do we realize that, as the Bridges and Tunnels go, so go the subways.