An open letter to state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and state Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith:
I would like to bring to your attention an alternative that holds potential in sparing city residents from paying fees for using the bridges that span the Harlem River and East rivers.
An alternative revenue stream that can help the Metropolitan Transportation Authority maintain an affordable and efficient mode of transportation can be secured by placing a fee on the passenger traffic generated at airports operated by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.
Every year, about 110 million passengers use Newark Liberty International (36.4 million passengers), LaGuardia (25.8 million) and John F. Kennedy International (47.7 million) airports. Placing a temporary “terminal usage fee” of $3 to $5 per passenger could secure anywhere from $330 million to $550 million annually for the MTA.
Most of the passengers using these airports also use city roadways and bridges, and the fee would be an extension of maintaining the infrastructure needed to complement the region’s transportation needs.
The varied proposals, such as an employer−paid payroll tax, fare hikes and bridge tolls, could be reworked, re−evaluated and discarded if we take this huge and potential revenue source into account.
The mechanism to apply this fee is in place by the fact that in 2004 the city contracted with the Port Authority for that agency’s continued operation of LaGuardia and JFK airports until 2050.
The economic crisis facing our state and its residents prompts us to consider and explore every possible means of revenue collection that will not overly burden our citizens and provide New Yorkers with a first−class public transportation system and infrastructure.
As it stands now, air travelers pay four modest fees included in the purchase of airline tickets. These fees are used for terminal construction and improvements, except for the sales tax on tickets, which is collected by airlines and passed along to the Internal Revenue Service.
The modest terminal use fee I am proposing would have a negligible impact on the cost of air travel, yet it provides an enormous potential for our efforts in addressing the MTA’s financial difficulties.
I look forward to your response.
Peter M. Rivera
Assemblyman
The Bronx
