How to fix New York City traffic

[mark1447]

There’s a lot right and a lot wrong about New York City. Most wrong things can’t be fixed easily — but there is one wrong that can be fixed in one fell swoop.

 

I'm talking about the city’s vehicular tolling booths: Many are in the wrong locations, and the maddening illogic of it all makes a hash of traffic.

 

 

l We toll drivers going from one part of Queens to another across the Cross Bay Bridge — but not going from Queens into Manhattan’s central business district across the Queensboro Bridge (which we did toll until 1911).

 

 

l We toll everybody driving to Staten Island as if it were one giant central business district. Drivers pay $13 cash to enter the borough from Brooklyn and $12 to enter from New Jersey’s three bridges. Truckers pay double or triple that amount, jacking up prices for everyone on the island. Why?

 

 

l A truck going from Brooklyn to New Jersey can take Interstate 278, the 1964 Verrazano Bridge and the Staten Island Expressway (all built for trucks) to the Goethals Bridge to New Jersey — or take Flatbush Ave, go over the 1909 Manhattan Bridge and drive through Chinatown across Canal St. to the Holland or Lincoln Tunnel.

 

To use highways and bridges built for trucks costs up to $70 cash; the cost for taking century-old creaky bridges and driving through Manhattan is zero, zip, zilch.

 

 

l Highways lead to the three Metropolitan Transportation Authority East River crossings — the Battery Tunnel, Midtown Tunnel and RFK Bridge, which we toll. City streets are the main feeders for the Queensboro, Williamsburg, Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges — and they are toll-free. So we encourage more traffic onto the city streets where people live and work instead of funneling them onto highways. Dumb.

 

 

l The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But when you start charging some people $13 in round-trip tolls, you get lots of zigging and zagging from drivers trying to avoid them.

 

Worst hit is the Queensboro Bridge, which is sandwiched between the two toll crossings of the Midtown Tunnel and the RFK Bridge: An estimated 50,000 cars and trucks drive miles out of their way to avoid the toll.

 

 

l We collect about $670 million annually from drivers going between the Bronx and Queens. Then we take most of that money and give it to the MTA, mainly for service to and from Manhattan’s central business district. Yet transit from Little Neck to Throgs Neck and Whitestone to Castle Hill stinks.

 

Fixing all these inequities is as easy as lowering or eliminating tolls in some locations and raising or introducing them in others.

 

I say we should lower the round-trip tolls on the Throgs Neck, Whitestone, RFK and Verrazano bridges by $5. We should lower the round-trip tolls on the two Rockaway bridges by $2 — and consider eliminating them altogether. We should charge cars $5 E-ZPass ($7 cash) to cross the East River bridges and the same to cross the avenues and highways at 60th St. in Manhattan. This would raise about $1.5 billion annually.

 

I presented this part of the plan to elected officials who previously opposed Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion-pricing plan back in 2008. Every Manhattan and Bronx City Council member voted for the Bloomberg plan; so did every Brooklyn and Queens member that had a “free” East River bridge in his or her district. The opposition was largely from the outer areas of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

 

A common theme I heard from these officials was that the boroughs were taking it on the chin but Manhattanites escaped unscathed.

 

They were right. So I added a few cost items aimed at Manhattan, including an end to the parking tax rebate for Manhattan residents, a surcharge on taxi fares south of 86th St. and increased fees on “black cars.” I was now up to nearly $2 billion in revenue.

 

I also threw in some outer borough sweeteners, including lowered bus fares in subway-less neighborhoods and restored bus service in areas that had recently lost service.

 

Another complaint of past plans was that all this money would disappear into the black hole that is the MTA. In my plan, about a quarter of expenditures would go back to drivers in the form of improved highways and bridges. This was not a feature of any past pricing scheme. Under my proposal, money earmarked for transit would largely go to infrastructure improvements, not fare reductions or employee raises. And about a third of the money would go to the MTA for maintaining the existing system in a state of good repair.

 

We can improve traffic dramatically in this city and, by the way, add 35,000 recurring jobs. It just takes a little bit of imagination.

 

Source http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/fix-york-city-traffic-article-1.1071470#ixzz1u4V4HwBs

 

 

 

 

[KeystoneRegional]

I would suggest quoting the article like this " Article ", @NYCTF Staff: The Quote Tag is not working properly.

 

As for this discussion, I think this should be merged with this thread: http://www.nyctransi...ms-master-plan/ due to a similar and potentially duplicate discussion. A re-title could be executed by re-labeling the merged thread: "NYC Five Borough Traffic and Toll Plans," I recommend this to the NYCTF Staff as a personal opinion.