Bridge Tolls
Advocacy Project

The Comptroller's Selective Concern

Despite a brightening economic picture, New York City could face a $2.3 billion budget deficit next year -- over $400 million larger than projected by the Bloomberg administration -- according to City Comptroller William Thompson.

Thompson recently told the Post he was concerned that the city might not get $490 million promised by the state legislature through a takeover of the city's Municipal Assistance Corp. debt. Gov. Pataki has gone to court to block the takeover, which Thompson characterized as the "single largest risk" to the city's financial plans.

Yet the $490 million one-time revenue infusion pales beside $600 million or more in annual, recurring revenue that Thompson spurned by helping to deep- six Mayor Bloomberg's proposal to toll the East River bridges.

At a public forum in Jan. 2003, Thompson derided bridge tolls as a meager revenue source amounting to just $100 - $150 million a year. Several reports since then - our own, and one by the city's Independent Budget Office, have authoritatively estimated toll revenues at around 5 times that level.