By Philip Newman
Can the city’s mass transit system be rescued from a financial abyss without crippling service cuts and imposing a 23 percent fare increase? The Ravitch Commission says yes by employing East River bridge tolls, a regionwide payroll tax and an 8 percent fare hike.
But even as the proposals were announced, the bridge tolls immediately came under attack from elected officials in Queens.
The commission, headed by former Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chief Richard Ravitch, whose efforts pulled buses and subways back from a state of near−ruin 30 years ago, presented his 13−member committee’s recommendations in Manhattan Dec. 4.
“I applaud the commission for finding solutions that rely on the entire region sharing the burden,” said Gov. David Paterson, who appointed the commission in April.
The MTA faces a $1.2 billion deficit and recently announced a doomsday plan to raise fares and tolls by 23 percent, scrap two subway lines and curtail several others, drop many bus lines and severely decrease the frequency of trains and buses citywide.
Ravitch, appearing with Patterson and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, estimated the tolls on bridges would raise around $600 million annually, with proceeds going toward improving express bus service, including BRT super express service, in which passengers pay before boarding and travel on bus−only lanes.
Legislative approval would be required for some proposals.
The payroll tax, which the commission called a mobility tax, of 33 cents on every $100 was estimated to bring in $1.5 billion a year. Employers and the self−employed alike would pay in the city and Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Dutchess and Putnam counties.
The Ravitch Commission also recommended an 8 percent fare increase and the most minimal of cuts in transit service.
Paterson said a 23 percent fare hike would leave the city in dire straits and “going back to the 70s.”
The governor called for the drawing up of legislative proposals as soon as possible, as much of the recommendations require approval by the state Legislature.
Although Paterson and Bloomberg praised the report, the proposal to toll the bridges did not go down well with many New Yorkers.
In fact, a Quinnipiac University poll released last Thursday said New York voters opposed such tolls 68 percent to 28 percent, with Queens voters against it 73 percent to 25 percent. Only those in Brooklyn opposed tolls by a higher percentage at 75 percent to 21 percent.
City Councilman John Liu (D−Flushing), chairman of the Council Transportation Committee, said the Ravitch Commission had succeeded in “blunting the harm to our mass transit system and its riders.”
But he said tolling the bridges “imposes too large a burden on a relatively small part of the populace who have fewer choices in the first place.”
Liu suggested the payroll tax should be set at 46 cents rather than 33 cents “to achieve the same target revenue.”
Councilman Leroy Comrie (D−St. Albans) said “about all I can support from this plan is the payroll tax. Certainly not tolls on the bridges, which would mean a hardship on Queens commuters.”
Councilman David Weprin (D−Hollis) called the bridge tolls “dead on arrival” but said the payroll tax “seems the way to go.” Weprin said the return of the commuter tax might also offer a solution to the MTA’s plight.
City Comptroller William Thompson said he had “serious concerns about instituting tolls on the Harlem and East River bridges.”
Thompson again mentioned his suggestion to tax motor vehicles according to their weight as “a fairer and more regionally equitable way to spread the fiscal burden.”
But Ravitch said the plan was intended to “spread the burden as wide as possible,”
State Assemblyman Michael Gianaris (D−Astoria) said charging tolls on East River bridges “disproportionately burdens middle− and working−class people who live in the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn.”
The plan also specifies that qualifications for membership on the MTA board include experience in finance, labor relations or transportation.
The Ravitch Commission recommended that the MTA should have the authority to raise fares adjusted for inflation every two years without public hearings in order to end what Ravitch called “political circuses.”
Reach contributing writer Philip Newman by e−mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718−229−0300, Ext. 136.
