By Bob Friedrich
The highway robber barons are at it again. “Congestion pricing” has now morphed into the euphemistic “Fair Tolling and Transportation Reinvestment Plan.”
Call it what you will, but it is the same heavy-handed, tax-collecting scheme as proposed in the past, except the current iteration is far more insidious. Proponents of the fair tolling plan are relentlessly pushing for this new fiscal burden to be placed on the shoulders of the motoring public.
Instead of seeking to reduce the outrageously high tolls we now pay to travel within our own city, the architects of the “unfair” tolling boondoggle are seeking to impose them on the free East River bridges and forever end the few remaining toll-free crossings that have survived for more than 100 years.
Will this be the year it ends? The proponents of this plan are methodically building support while the motoring public is asleep at the wheel. This is your wake-up call.
The smoke and mirrors being used to sell this scheme is the promise of lower tolls on some of the lesser-used bridges in our city. How long will it take before those tolls are raised again to satisfy the city’s insatiable appetite for more revenue?
Only then, we will be trapped with the same high tolls we have now, but they will also be on our previously free East River crossings. Do not be fooled by the snake oil salesmen promising you lower tolls and a new revenue stream for transportation. We have heard it before.
First it was the $15 city Auto Use Tax imposed on every vehicle registration in the city to help fund local transportation. Soon that was not enough, so they added another $25 to it and called it the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District Supplemental Registration Fee.
When this was no longer sufficient to provide a sustainable funding source, the MTA Sales Tax surcharge was imposed and added to the city’s already high sales tax. We were told this would finally create the sustainable revenue stream that was needed.
Soon, it was not enough and the “MTA Mobility Tax,” an income tax burden on self-employed individuals, was created to provide the revenue stream. Fast-forward a few years and here we are again, being told that the Fair Tolling and Transportation Reinvestment Plan will provide the sustainable funding stream the Auto Use Tax, MTA Sales Tax, Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District Supplemental Registration Fee and the MTA Mobility Income Tax have failed to do.
If we have not learned the lessons from the past, we are sure to repeat them again in the future.
And this tolling shakedown does not stop at the bridges and tunnels. An invisible toll booth will be erected along 60th Street in Manhattan. Every time you cross it, you will be hit with an additional $7.50 toll.
Travel into Manhattan for a show, doctor’s appointment or to visit while crossing 60th Street, and it will cost you $7.50. Cross it again on your way to an uptown restaurant and it is another $7.50. Cross it again once more on your way home and your total Manhattan toll is $22.50!
This is highway robbery and the robber barons are our elected officials who are poised to support this insanity. City Councilman Mark Weprin (D-Oakland Gardens), a senior member of the Council and previously a reliable opponent of congestion pricing, now favors the toll plan, saying it will bring transportation improvements and lower tolls on the lesser-used bridges.
He should know better and understand that the well is dry and we simply cannot afford to hand over more of our money through higher tolls. Many of us in the other outerboroughs do not have reliable transportation alternatives and must use our own vehicles.
The proponents of this plan are methodically building support for it. Do not remain asleep at the wheel. It is imperative that every driver reading this must call their Council member and tell them to oppose this tolling boondoggle and keep our East River crossings free.
If you do not know who your Council member is, visit council.nyc.gov/html/members/members.shtml.
Let’s make sure the days of the highway robber barons do not return.
Bob Friedrich is president of Glen Oaks Village and a civic leader.
