Bridge Tolls

Gov. Cuomo's focus on fare beating is finally going to start applying to drivers.

Assembly Democrats are meeting today to discuss their priorities for next year's legislation session, and StreetsPAC is asking New Yorkers to call their legislators and urge them to sign on to the Move NY toll reform plan.

A legal scholar says NYC has the authority to toll its own roads and bridges, which could raise revenue for transit.

Don't count out Move New York just yet.

Andrew Cuomo knows he's the governor of New York, right?

Crossing the Hudson River will get much more expensive under a proposed Port Authority plan to sharply increase tolls and fares on its four bridges, two tunnels and the PATH train. The increases are a result of the poor economy, the costs of rebuilding after the attacks of September 11, and the expensive repairs needed on the agency's aging infrastructure, said the Port Authority. Left unstated was the enormous cost of raids on the agency by the state governments of New York and New Jersey.

Five Senate Republicans, led by Sen. John Bonacic, are making transit advocates an offer they can probably refuse. The payoff is appealing: state authorization for bridge tolls on the East River bridges. But the price they are demanding in return, the total repeal of the payroll mobility tax outside New York City, is too high to pay.

It's been 20 months since the state legislature passed an MTA funding package with a conspicuous missing piece. In early 2009, the transit agency was reeling from the recession, and straphangers were about to get walloped by deep service cuts and a 23 percent fare hike. Albany responded by enacting just a partial fix: a regional payroll tax and a smattering of new fees on taxis and car rentals. Tolls on the East and Harlem River bridges were supposed to be part of the deal -- getting car commuters who benefit from the congestion-busting effect of transit to contribute their fair share. But the State Senate insisted on preserving the free ride for motorists.

One would be hard pressed to find a more broadly drawn constituency in the city than that of state Senate District 31, which spans from the Upper West Side to Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood before hopping the Harlem River into Riverdale. But in spite of vast differences in culture and income, most district residents have at least two things in common: they don't own a car, and they rely heavily on trains and buses to conduct their day-to-day lives.