Editorial: Is Move NY all it is cracked up to be? by George Fiala

The Transportation Committee of CB 6 tonight approved a motion to support the Move NY program that “Gridlock” Sam Schwartz, former traffic commissioner who now runs a profitable traffic consulting business, has been touting for the past couple of years.

This program is a redo of Mayor Bloomberg’s unsuccessful plan to institute tolls on the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg and Queensboro bridges, and charge congestion pricing fees for driving in Manhattan. Bloomberg’s 2008 plan failed because the NYS Legislature, who has jurisdiction over the MTA, chose not to act on it, in part because of opposition from Sheldon Silver.

This new plan is a reworking of Bloomberg’s plan with some sweeteners attached. To attract support from legislators from Brooklyn and Queens, Schwartz proposes lowering of tolls on bridges going to the Rockaways and from Queens to the Bronx (Triboro, Whitestone and Throgs Neck). In addition, he has figures showing that the plan would raise $1.5 billion dollars a year, and he pledges that the money will go directly to the MTA, addressing their shortfall in needed capital funds.

The presentation is further gilded by stressing that the MTA funds would go towards improving the subway system. It is true that over 50% of the planned capital expenses would go to the transit system, but additional funds would be used for commuter railways as well as bridge infrastructure.

The Move NY plan claims to raise $6 billion in four years, which will help their announced $15 billion gap in their most recent four year capital funding plan.

Another sales pitch is the prospect of less truck traffic in downtown Brooklyn. Since the Verrazano Bridge and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels are tolled only one way, it is claimed that much of the city’s truck traffic is composed of trucks coming into the city using the Verrazano and leaving using the tunnels, thus avoiding tolls.  It is not mentioned that there are incoming tolls on the Bayonne, Goethals, and Outerbridge Crossing, which a truck would have to pay to get to the Verrazano.

Their answer to the obvious question – wouldn’t it be easier to reinstitute two way tolling, rather than spending $760 million to initiate and administer the new tolls over the currently free bridges –  is that the one way tolling was mandated by the Federal government. The fact is that the one way tolling was indeed federal legislation instituted in 1986 to ease congestion in the pre-EZ pass days. Removal of this restriction is something that Congressman Jerry Nadler has been fighting for. The Move NY position is that it is not worth fighting the Feds (or the Port Authority either, for that matter), so they do not address it.

The CB 6 presentation, as well as a recent Town Hall at the Atlantic Avenue YWCA given by Schwartz himself, was a fast paced slideshow full of rapid fire sales pitches. It is summarized on their website. It is presented in a way that is designed to be appealing to the local progressive crowd – better mass transit, better environment, the bulk of the cost borne by rich Manhattanites.

However, not all agree with this plan.

The Queens Chronicle published a story today presenting some opposing opinions:

“State Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) and Assemblyman David Weprin (D-Fresh Meadows) said at a press conference in Long Island City last Friday that Move NY’s vision to make up for adding tolls to free bridges by decreasing the prices on already tolled bridges would be a “house of cards,” where it could not be guaranteed tolls won’t later be raised to what they are now by future elected officials.

“I’ve always felt it’s discriminatory to charge people to go from one borough to the other,” said Avella, who stood with Weprin and community leaders across the way from an entrance to the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge. “Once we have tolls on the East River bridges, they will be there forever.”

Speakers also asserted that area small businesses that use delivery transport into Manhattan would be unfairly taxed.

“This is a tax on the middle class and on small businesses and particularly on people that live in Brooklyn and Queens, because people that live on Brooklyn and Queens rely on these free bridges,” Weprin said. “This is literally a proposal for highway robbery.”

The two officials said parts of their districts in Eastern Queens don’t have accessible buses or nearby subway stations, causing their constituents to rely on driving to Manhattan for a number of reasons.

Weprin and Avella stressed other ways to make up the money: Weprin said he thinks there should be a commuter tax on people coming into the city from outside and Avella has championed the idea of legalized sports betting. Avella said both would raise millions of dollars without placing tolls on bridges.

Move NY claims that tolling the four East River bridges would raise $1.6 billion a year in new revenue. The plan is to charge $8 per trip for those without an EZ Pass, and $5.33 for EZ Pass users, as is the current fee at the Battery Tunnel.

On its website , the NYC Department of Transportation presents figures for those bridge crossings.  They say that in 2010, there were 488,000 crossings each workday.  An average cost of $6 per crossing comes to about $2.9 million a day. There are 260 weekdays in a year, which adds up to $754 million per year. Making a generous assumption of half the weekday traffic on the weekends adds $150 million, bringing the total up to a bit over $900 million. This leaves a shortfall in their estimate of $700 million, on the bridge tolling alone. And these figures do not take into account holidays, and the possibility that less people might drive into the city if they would have to pay.

Despite Move NY’s insistence that their figures have been checked by people in the bond industry, we feel that this proposal merits additional fact checking before being given blind support.