Bridge Tolls
Advocacy Project

What You Can Do

East River bridge tolls should be a political slam-dunk. They promise to benefit every New Yorker while impacting just a relative handful. Yet nothing comes easy in NYC, and especially not when motorist entitlements are at stake. Winning the tolls will require painstaking marshaling of public and political support through citizen action.

The East River bridges are owned by New York City and lie within the city's borders. Nevertheless, since Albany must approve fees levied by the city, bridge tolls will require consent by four parties: the mayor and the City Council, to signal the city's willingness, and the State Legislature and the governor, to enact the enabling legislation. (For a dissenting legal memo arguing that no state approval is required, see "Legal Authority of New York City to Impose Carpool Rule and Tolls on East River Bridges" [PDF].)

Mayor Bloomberg is actively pro-tolls while Gov. Pataki has spoken publicly against them. No councilmembers or legislators have endorsed bridge tolls at this writing. That can and will change, with the help of people like you.

Focus on New York City Council

The first hurdle the tolls must clear, and probably the highest, is for a majority of the City Council's 51 members to approve a resolution favoring East River bridge tolls. If you live in New York City, the most effective action you can take for the tolls is to get your councilmember to publicly endorse them. Visit NYPIRG's CMAP Server to find your councilmember's name and address. (Letters make a bigger impact than e-mails or phone calls.)

What Your Councilmember Can and Should Do

From visiting this site you know that 98% of New Yorkers don't commute on an East River bridge and will average just $47 a year in tolls. You also know that New York City desperately needs new revenue to forestall deeply damaging cuts in vital services.

Nevertheless, the tolls have come to be viewed as politically untouchable. For councilmembers from Brooklyn and Queens, denouncing the tolls has become de rigeur, despite the overwhelming benefits to most residents of those boroughs. Absurdly, councilmembers from Manhattan or the Bronx are keeping silent even though their constituents stand to gain even more from East River tolls. Apparently, collegiality trumps both budget reality and traffic sanity. And no councilmember wants to be "the first one out of the foxhole," as one official told us.

So what do you say when you write to or meet with your councilmember? Try these:

• Tell your councilmember the tolls are progressive, fair and needed now. You can find all the arguments you'll need in our Frequently Asked Questions. If you live in Brooklyn, Queens or Staten Island, cite the borough-specific data in Sections 5 and 6 of our new report.
• If your councilmember is reluctant to endorse tolls on his own, ask him to join the group of "closet" supporters who will go public when they reach "critical mass."
• Ask your councilmember to write to Gov. Pataki and ask that the experts at State DOT be allowed to estimate the effect of bridge tolls on bridge traffic levels and commute times. Running DOT's new model, paid for with $10 million of the taxpayers' money, should be a no-brainer.
• If your Councilmember serves on the Council's Transportation Committee, ask her to demand fact-finding hearings on East River tolls. Committee Chair John Liu, from Flushing, is vehemently anti-toll and will need lots of arm-twisting to convene a hearing he knows will shed positive light on tolls.
• Want to go the extra mile? Request a meeting with your Councilmember or his chief of staff. You may want to prep by attending one of our training sessions for toll advocates. Or contact us so to discuss the best approach. In any case, have your action requests ready when you go in.

Other Ways To Advance the Bridge Tolls Cause

Write Mayor Bloomberg (at City Hall, New York, NY 10007). The mayor took a bold step in calling for East River tolls last year. But he's been quiet on tolls lately. Let him know you appreciate his political courage. Urge him to keep pushing tolls. Ask how you can help.

Write your borough president. While the BP's have no legislative authority, anti-toll rhetoric by the Brooklyn and Queens BP's is making it hard for Councilmembers from those boroughs to support tolls. If you live in either borough, tell Marty Markowitz and Helen Marshall you don't appreciate their kowtowing to a tiny fraction of motorists at the expense of the vast majority of their constituents. (See Sections 5 and 6 of our new report.) If you live in Manhattan or the Bronx, tell C. Virginia Fields and Adolfo Carrión to get off the fence and support this essential revenue-raiser and traffic-buster.

If you live outside NYC, write your State Senator and Assembly Member. (Long Island click here.) Write Gov. Pataki and demand he allow State DOT to model the tolls' traffic benefits.

Win your civic group's endorsement. Get your community board, union and other civic groups to pass a resolution supporting East River tolls. We'll add them to our list of toll endorsers.

Write letters-to-the-editor. Write your community weekly or any of the major dailies. It's best to hitch your letter to something in the news. With the staggering fiscal crisis and perennial traffic woes, this shouldn't be a problem. Best is if your Councilmember is complaining about budget or traffic problems but won't lift a finger for bridge tolls.

Let BTAP know about it. Keep us informed about your efforts and successes. Write us at info@bridgetolls.org.