Bridge Tolls
Advocacy Project

East River Bridge Tolls, Who Will Really Pay

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1. Introduction

This report examines a crucial but little-studied aspect of the debate over tolling New York City’s East River bridges: How will the cost of the tolls be distributed among New York-area residents and businesses? Who stands to pay the tolls, and how much?

This question becomes more pressing as the tolls themselves become more likely. Elected officials in Brooklyn and Queens represent East River bridge tolls as a dagger poised above the outer-borough jugular. Representatives of truckers and of citizens poorly served by transit, among others, are calling for toll discounts or exemptions — demands that are likely to multiply as the prospects for tolling improve.

It should be self-evident that East River bridge toll revenue will benefit New York City transit users, schoolchildren and indeed everybody who depends directly or indirectly on public services and investment — which is to say, all New Yorkers. This report examines the other side of the toll coin — who will pay, rather than who will benefit — and reaches surprising and important conclusions, including these:

• Very few New Yorkers will be hit hard by the tolls. The 98% of New York City residents of driving age (ages 18-80) who do not drive daily to work on an East River bridge will spend, on average, less than $50 a year in East River bridge tolls.

• Regular users of the East River bridges tend to be relatively well-off. Compared to their neighbors who don’t drive to work via an East River bridge, bridge commuters earn, on average, $14,300 a year more.

• Toll revenue from non-residents of New York City will replace a third or more of the revenue lost when the commuter tax was repealed in 1999.

• While more than half of the tolls will be paid by residents of Brooklyn and Queens, the prospective toll burden on either borough is lighter than the cost to Manhattanites of the residential property tax surcharge enacted as a budget-balancing measure last fall. Seen in this context, bridge tolls look more like equity than highway robbery.

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