MTA Bridges and Tunnels

Throughout the debates surrounding both congestion pricing and East River bridge tolls, one spurious argument set forth by opponents of the plans considered the impact toll devices would have on traffic. Installing tollbooths on the East River bridges would create traffic jams on local streets in Brooklyn and Manhattan as drivers slowed to pay the toll, they said.

Now, this argument was clearly a flawed one at the time because new tollbooths simply do not have cash collectors or levered arms that raise upon receipt of the toll. Rather, new tollbooths rely on high-speed E-ZPass readers and license plate camera technology to capture revenue. New Yorkers aren’t familiar with this idea because the technology hasn’t been implemented within the five boroughs, but we need to look no further than the New Jersey Turnpike to see high-speed tolling in action.

Recently, though, the MTA announced that cashless tolls will be coming to New York. As part of a pilot program that may see the technology in use on every Bridges & Tunnels crossing, the MTA is beginning to ready the Henry Hudson Bridge for cashless tolling. As part of the plan, the authority is cutting the southbound bridge from four lanes to three and installing camera equipement, computer software and overhead gantries that allow for gateless tolling.

The gateless tolling, says the MTA, will begin late this year or early next, and according to Tom Namako of The Post, by 2012, the entire bridge will be gateless. “We can move 600 to 800 vehicles an hour with gates,” James Ferrara, head of MTA Bridges and Tunnels said. “This is not high-speed tolling.”

Namako fills in some details:

The speed limit at the new, gateless, E-ZPass lanes will likely be set at 15 mph, officials said. Ferrara said one of the goals of the pilot project will be to analyze the rate of traffic without the gates. “Presumably, we will move traffic faster without [them],” he said.

Then, by 2012, all of the toll-gate arms will be gone, and the bridge will go totally cashless. The lanes will either be E-ZPass or set up for video tolling. Video tolling means that drivers will be billed for the toll based on their license-plate information, which will be taken from video footage at the crossing. The move will allow drivers to pass though the toll without stopping — a speedier system currently used in Dallas, Denver and Sydney, Australia, Ferrara said.

It also will save money by eliminating the salaries of toll-booth clerks and costs associated with rehabbing and repairing aging toll plazas, officials said Still, the agency said no jobs would be lost during the pilot program. If successful, the test project — expected to cost between $10 million and $16 million — will spread to all of the MTA’s crossings, the agency said.

To many, this might seem like a minor move and one the MTA should have taken years ago. Cashless tolling, after all, can save on personnel costs and speeds up traffic as well. But for those who still harbor dreams of East River bridge tolls, the first cashless, gate-less operation in New York City is a small beacon of hope. If this pilot is successful, if traffic picks up across the Spuyten Duyvil, if New York’s drivers see how gateless tolling works, those who oppose tolling on these spurious grounds will see their argument dissolve right before their eyes.

This excellent photo made the rounds yesterday morning a few hours after the new Willis Ave. Bridge made its way north up the East River. Unfortunately, the old 9-to-5 had me away from the computer for the duration, and I couldn’t get this published until today. No matter; it’s still a great photo.

What we see here is the NYC Department of Transportation’s new Willis Ave. Bridge floating underneath the raised span of the RFK — or Triborough — Bridge. This lift began at 9:57 a.m. and concluded 43 minutes later at 10:36 a.m. as traffic was halted across the bridge.

Despite the clearance on the sides, this maneuver wasn’t as easy it looks. The new 2400-ton bridge is 65 feet high, 350 feet long and 77 feet wide, and the barge carrying it was 300 feet wide, just 10 feet shy of the width of the Harlem Lift Span. “We’re old pros at doing these lifts for normal marine traffic but this was like threading
a needle,” Raymond Bush, the general manager of the RFK Bridge, said. “The captain of the barge was being extremely cautious to make sure they didn’t hit the lift span.”

Photo courtesy of MTA Bridges and Tunnels/Raymond Bush.

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.