East River tolls a super idea, says new report

by Pete Donohue from the Daily News Sunday July 20, 2003

If tolls are ever placed on the East River bridges, traffic will not grind to a halt but will actually improve, according to a new report aimed at reviving the unpopular idea.

The study suggested that some of the drivers who currently travel the toll free Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queensboro and Williamsburg bridges would avoid the crossings if they had to pay to use them.

Some drivers will leave their cars at home, take mass transit or car pool. Others would take less used crossings, such as the Battery Tunnel, according to the report.

Combined, those changes would help drivers shave about five minutes off round trips over the four East River bridges.

“In a single stroke, tolls will do away with more than 9% of the idle time that truckers, car drivers, car passengers and bus passengers now lose annually in traffic jams throughout New York City,” according to the report by economist Charles Komanoff and traffic engineer Brian Ketcham.

With E-Zpass technology, overhead electronic readers could record vehicle trips and allow for payment without requiring stops at tollbooths.

Nearly 80% of the time savings will occur in Brooklyn and Queens streets and highways, which the authors hope will build political support for tolls in Brooklyn and Queens.

Tolling could cost drivers up to $700 million a year, but the authors contend the money could be used to finance bridge and road repairs for which taxpayers already foot the bill. And increased use of MTA bridges (which some would use as alternates) would infuse the agency with about $50 million a year.

The report “absolutely makes the case to return tolls to these bridges that were all built with tolls in mind and had tolls until 1911,” said Sam Schwartz, a former city first deputy transportation commissioner.

Bloomberg had proposed tolling the bridges, but a spokesman said last week the idea was off the table for at least four years.

But Bloomberg recently suggested the idea could be revived sooner than that.