While much of yesterday’s Ravitch Committee hearings focused around city and state contributions to the MTA, a former New York City transportation commissioner had a different suggestion. In his testimony in front of the committee, Lucius J. Riccio suggested that the city sell its bridges to the MTA for $1. The MTA would then be in charge of maintaining the bridge but could then collect tolls on all river crossings.
This sale would both generate millions of dollars in revenue for the MTA and serve to discourage traffic into Manhattan via river-crossing tolls. Ravitch himself was less than enthusiastic about the idea, and the City Council has long resisted implementing tolls on the free East River bridges and tunnels. However, the Bloomberg Administration is amenable to this idea, and it would help solve the MTA’s financial crisis.
18 comments
This is a fantastic idea. It would effectively act like congestion pricing without the bureaucratic red tape. It would reduce the infrastructure cost (no cameras to install all across the city) and everyone who drives is already very familiar with EZ Pass. They should make them an exclusive EZ pass toll since they are primarily used by nearby residents and not individuals coming from elsewhere in the country that might not have access to EZ Pass. No additional traffic from toll booths, extra income for MTA, encourage public transit, lower city maintenance costs. Also this is unlikely to negatively effect the one difference and defect of this plan vs. true congestion pricing; [ i.e. charging people who go to Inwood (not the target of congestion pricing) instead of the central business district] because these bridges don’t serve the north manhattan area.
I’m lost. Putting a toll on Manhattan streets requires approval from Albany, but putting a toll on bridges in and out of Manhattan wouldn’t? Why is this? What are the limits of NYC home rule? That is, for what policy changes does New York City have to get approval from the state legislature?
This is b/c before it was congestion pricing, and the city needed money to install the infrastructure for it. They needed state approval for it. The bridges themselves are controlled by the city…I believe.
As I understood it, (and to clarify the original message) the proposal is to only sell (and toll) the Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges. The Brooklyn and Queensboro/59th St Bridges would stay free and under city ownership.
I’ve always thought that all of the bridges should be operated by a common authority (whoever that may be), but I think the MTA would adequately need to demonstrate its competence in operating them before they are handed over. Would the tolls fund the upkeep, plus a surplus to fund mass-transit as hoped, or would it be mismanaged?
On a related note, I’ve always found it odd that the MTA’s subways run over city bridges and never along MTA crossings. This proposal would change that, and perhaps some efficiencies could result.
So the reason the Verazzanno-Narrows Bridge and the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel have tolls is because they belong to the MTA?
I think cameras will still need to be installed, either as part of the E-Z Pass infrastructure (to catch toll evaders) or as its own camera-based toll collection system.
IMHO, all bridges to Manhattan should be tolled, for the simple reason that there are many freeloaders who go through Manhattan to get to New Jersey or upstate New York- avoiding the Verazzanno toll and the NJ Turnpike. The BQE won’t see much more traffic because the Queens-Bronx connections already have tolls.
What kind of shape are these bridges in? Are they going to need major maintenance anytime soon?
The MTA can’t keep up the maintenace of the bridge over the Gowanus Canal. We should expect them to keep actual bridges up to speed?
MTA Bridges and Tunnels would operate these bridges as they do the Triborough, Verrazano, Henry Hudson, Bronx-Whitestone, Throgs Neck, Gil Hodges and Cross Bay Bridges. Those are largely trouble-free spots, and there’s no reason to expect them to falter with the other East River crossings. As critical as I’ve been about the Gowanus Canal/Culver Viaduct, it’s not fair to equate the MTA Bridges and Tunnels management of the bridges to the New York City Transit efforts in that regard.
True, the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority runs those bridges, and yes, they are a division of the MTA – sign the bridges over directly to the TBTA – not the MTA.
While the TBTA is a division of the MTA, there is a difference between how the two are run. One being run well, the other as a whole…not so well.
The East River bridges, despite coming under MTA stewardship, would continue to receive generous Federal funding for their rehabilitation and would continue to do so well into the future; historical significance should insure that even excluding the tolls, those bridges will receive the necessary funds to stay in good nick. At least that’s what the Federal DoT, the state, and NYC have mentioned a couple decades ago when they first embarked on those massive rehabs!
The tolling has the potential to really generate money for mass transit.
This is a horrible idea!! New Yorkers should have a couple of ways to drive into Manhattan without paying tolls. It’s been long over due that the state and the city just need to dedicate the appropriate amount to the MTA for transit. What the city chips in equates to pennies a year.
Why? I can’t take the train into Manhattan without paying fares.
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I already own the Brooklyn Bridge. Bought it off a guy last year. Pretty sweet deal.
Hey Ben, hope law school is treating you right!
You’ll remember that one of the options at the Commission level was tolling the East River and Harlem River crossings, in lieu of Bloomberg’s congestion pricing scheme.
I still think this is the most sensible and efficient approach and it’s the one I advocated for last year. Tolling the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges (but not the Brooklyn) would create a horrendous traffic problem on the Brooklyn Bridge and it’s approaches.
It has to be parity for all crossings, in my opinion. Recall I floated the question of whether the City could transfer these properties to MTA several months ago. It would make a nice end run around Shelly and his merry gang in Albany.
And we can’t rely solely on use fees . .. the millionaire’s tax proposed (I think) by Silver should also be part of this solution. We need a decently progressive tax scheme to pay for transit; while tolls are targeted use fees, which is good, they are still regressive compared to increasing the progressiveness of our income tax schedule.
No, it wouldn’t. The traffic redistribution theory has no empirical support. When the West Side Highway collapsed, the majority of its traffic disappeared instead of reappearing elsewhere.
The point of bridge tolls isn’t to raise money, but to discourage driving. The extra money also functions as a dedicated revenue stream (and one that’s far more consistent than a millionaire’s tax, whose revenue plummets every time a financial firm fails), but that’s not its main purpose.
[…] 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 […]