Bridge Tolls
Advocacy Project

Brooklyn Politics
By Erik Engquist

TOLLS STUDY WON'T SWAY MARTY: A policy analyst who favors East River bridge tolls has figured out that less than 2 percent of city residents (of driving age) would pay more than $50 per year if $5 tolls were imposed [see note below].

Charles Komanoff's study also found that tolls would cost Brooklynites far less than last fall's property tax sur­charge is costing Manhattan residents.

"Memo to Marty Markowitz: Manhattan took its hit. Now it's your turn," Komanoff emailed us. (Incidentally, Komanoff lives in Manhattan, though his colleague at the Bridge Tolls Advocacy Project, Steve O'Neill, lives in Park Slope.)

The report is posted at www.bridgetolls.org, but we doubt the borough president will be visiting. Markowitz is steadfastly opposed to tolls on the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg bridges, because on balance they would disproportionately affect Brooklynites (albeit a small per­centage of them).

It's worth mentioning that Markowitz is in favor of restoring Brooklyn-bound tolls on the Verrazano, an indi­cation that he has no problem with tolls so long as his con­stituents aren't paying them.

Perhaps Markowitz is just following the script that Brooklyn's leader is bound by, just as the Staten Island beep must support keeping the Brooklyn-bound Verrazano free.

Markowitz, if you ask him (and we did), will also rattle off less Brooklyn-centric reasons for opposing East River tolls, such as "tolls are a job-killing tax." But traffic con­gestion also kills jobs, Komanoff counters, and tolls would divert enough travelers to public transportation to speed up drivers' trips over the bridges.

Markowitz adds that tolls would deter Manhattanites from visiting Brooklyn restaurants. By that logic, Komanoff points out, Brooklynites would be deterred from visiting Manhattan restaurants, and instead would eat here.

Markowitz notes that some folks have no alternative but to drive to Manhattan. That is true. We also have no alter­native but to eat. Should the city pay our grocery bills?

By the same token (as it were), many more folks have no alternative but to take the subways and buses. Yet they still pay a fare.

In fact, fares are going up 33 percent. Why make straphangers pay almost the entire cost of their trip (our subway subsidy is about the lowest nationwide) while drivers pay nothing for bridges and roads?

Markowitz's best argument against tolls is that some of the revenue might subsidize suburban systems like the LIRR and Metro North, which are already more heavily subsidized than buses and subways on a per-trip basis.

Indeed, if tolls are implemented on the East River bridges, the revenue should be kept in the city.

[Note from BTAP: Actually, the 98% of City residents who don't commute on an East River bridge will average under $50 a year in tolls. Since that's an average, some will pay more, some less. See our report "East River Bridge Tolls, Who Will Really Pay?" for more details.]