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This Week's Attitude
Last week, State Senator Carl Kruger called the idea an example of "uppity Manhattan politics at its worst." Though I rarely agree with Carl (I know him well enough to be that informal), he's 110 percent on target this time, noting that the plan risks "offending every outer borough resident." You go guy! Brooklyn and Queens residents are, more often than not, treated like second cousins to our Manhattan counterparts. Requiring them to pay tolls to enter the Kingdom of the Apple only aggravates that feeling. All you have to do to see the disparity is pick up any city newspaper and see how little coverage is given to the rest of us. But the tabloids - and even the selective New York Times at times - come a runnin' when there's a bloody murder, fatal fire or grisly accident to report. The Daily News has a special Brooklyn supplement on Tuesdays that is usually filled with lots of ads, but little news. And its daily Brooklyn page sometimes has lead stories of news in Manhattan, Queens and, disturbingly, Long Island! But Manhattan-centric news is grist for another column. The tolls idea was revived when a commission created by the state legislature, of which Kruger is a veteran, came up with a plan to reduce traffic in Manhattan without resorting to congestion pricing. Imposing tolls on the bridges is Bloomberg's second attempt at this plan. However, it has more to do with the city's future fiscal problems than the mayor's strategy for greening the Big Apple. Renewed talk of tolls may be a contemporary issue, but in the first decade after the first automobile rolled off the assembly line, the four bridges - Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg and Queensboro - required tolls on vehicles passing over them. However, fees were abolished in 1911 by Mayor William Gaynor and resulted in a substantial loss of $250,000 a year for the city. That's equivalent to about $5 million in 2007, which is small potatoes in the city's current $50 billion budget. There was little talk of the fee for years until 1966 when Mayor Lindsay, faced with (what else?) a budget deficit, considered the unwelcome idea of 25-cent tolls. He quickly withdrew the plan when city engineers discovered that the approaches to all four bridges were incompatible for tollbooths and therefore, would not be cost effective to make the necessary adjustments to erect them. (Since little's changed in 43 years, makes you wonder how modern tollbooths would be any more suitable.) Long before Al Gore's climate concerns, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller revived Lindsay's toll plan in 1973, in order to comply with the federal governments clean-air standards that had to be met two years hence. The City Council rejected the suggestion. Four years later Mayor Abe Beame supported a state legislature initiative to permanently ban tolls on the East River bridges because they would create massive traffic jams at toll plazas, resulting in a significant increase in pollution. The ban plan was subsequently scrapped. Paradoxically, Mayor Ed Koch supported tolls in 1987, as well as a $10 fee for vehicles entering Manhattan below 59th Street (sounds like a forerunner of congestion pricing), in order to reduce pollution. Following relentless business and public protests and opposition by almost every elected official in the city that brainstorm was ultimately discarded. Early in Bloomberg's first term, he breathed new life into enacting tolls to meet a 2003 budget shortfall when his request for a commuter tax was rejected in Albany. Now, almost five years later, there's another cash flow problem looming - after he leaves City Hall - so the mayor wants to blemish his principally positive legacy with more fees for working guys and gals who still cringe when they get parking fines he doubled under the guise of easing traffic. Obviously, that goal failed, but it added millions to the city's assets. One goal of the bridge tolls is supposed to prompt drivers to leave their cars at home and take mass transit, which was hit by the MTA with a fare hike last week. So, even if drivers try to save a few bucks by taking alternate transportation, they'll have to shell out more to use buses and subways. They got us coming and going, driving and riding! When Deputy Mayor Bill Cunningham explained why Bloomberg's property tax hike and parking violations were needed four years ago, he said, "…We have to make everybody part of the solution." Adding tolls on the four bridges that Brooklyn and Queens residents traverse to enter Manhattan would not involve everybody, just those in the two boroughs. Why not make the East River spans carpool-only during the morning and afternoon rush hours? That would ease the traffic flow and reduce pollution, without drivers having to pay additional fees. And perhaps offer an opportunity to get to know your neighbors! Of course, that wouldn't affect the city's financial dilemma, so somebody would have to come up with another brilliant idea to fleece those of us in the lesser boroughs. If the East River bridges toll proposal becomes law, Brooklyn and Queens drivers heading for the spans that lead to Manhattan would have to pay to cross those bridges when they come to them. Ba dum bump.
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