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East River Bridge Tolls, Who Will Really Pay
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4. County-to-County Trip Breakdown
Three of the four East River bridges connect Manhattan
Island to Brooklyn, and the fourth links it to Queens. East River bridge tolls
are usually thought to apply primarily to trips originating in Brooklyn or
Queens and ending in Manhattan, rather than the reverse. This is only partly
true. Some 84% of East River bridge traffic originates as westbound trips, with
just 16% traveling west-to-east (if we assign each trip’s return leg the same
direction as the first leg). Yet trips from Brooklyn or Queens to Manhattan
constitute barely half (51%) of East River traffic. Table 1 includes other
important findings:
-
Almost 78% of trips across the East River bridges are bound for
Manhattan. Roughly two-thirds of these originate in Brooklyn (27%) or Queens
(24%), but Nassau and Suffolk combined add 18% and trips from Staten Island add
8%.
- 9% of trips using an East River bridge traverse Manhattan Island
to travel from Brooklyn, Queens or Long Island to New Jersey, or vice-versa.
- Trips originating in Manhattan and using an East River bridge to
reach Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau, Suffolk or Staten Island account for almost 10%
of East River bridge crossings.
- Trips between Brooklyn and the Bronx (or vice-versa) account for
4% of East River bridge crossings; these use either the Brooklyn or Manhattan
Bridge.
Table 1: County-to-County Shares of Trips Across
(free) East River Bridges
Cells denote share of bridge trips combining origin
and destination shown. For example, 27.5% in top row denotes share of all East
River bridge trips that originate in Brooklyn and end in Manhattan. See Table 4
for trip numbers. See text box on next page for bridges’ shares of
county-to-county vehicle trips.
|
County
of Origin
|
County
of Destination
|
|
(read down)
|
Bklyn
|
Queens
|
Manh
|
S.I.
|
Bronx
|
Nassau
|
Suffolk
|
Bergen
|
Essex
|
Hudson
|
TOTAL
|
|
Brooklyn
|
-
|
-
|
27.5%
|
-
|
1.8%
|
-
|
-
|
1.8%
|
0.7%
|
1.5%
|
33.3%
|
|
Queens
|
-
|
-
|
23.9%
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
0.2%
|
0.3%
|
24.4%
|
|
Manhattan
|
4.0%
|
2.8%
|
-
|
0.4%
|
-
|
1.8%
|
0.6%
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
9.6%
|
|
Staten Is.
|
-
|
-
|
8.0%
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
8.0%
|
|
Bronx
|
2.2%
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
2.2%
|
|
Nassau
|
-
|
-
|
12.8%
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
0.1%
|
0.1%
|
13.0%
|
|
Suffolk
|
-
|
-
|
5.4%
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
0.0%
|
0.0%
|
5.4%
|
|
Bergen
|
1.9%
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
1.9%
|
|
Essex
|
0.6%
|
0.3%
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
0.1%
|
0.0%
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
0.9%
|
|
Hudson
|
1.0%
|
0.2%
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
0.1%
|
0.0%
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
1.2%
|
|
T O T A L
|
9.6%
|
3.2%
|
77.5%
|
0.4%
|
1.8%
|
2.0%
|
0.7%
|
1.8%
|
1.1%
|
2.0%
|
100.0%
|
Blank cells denote zero or trace percent; 0.0% indicates less than 0.05% but greater
than zero. Trips originating or concluding in other counties were too few to
compile. Data in table are calculated from 1990 U.S. Census data compiled in
Journey-to-Work
in the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council Area and the Surrounding
Tri-State Metropolitan Region (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut), Analysis
and Comparison Between 1980 and 1990 Journey-to-Work Date, A Staff
Report, New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, Oct. 1999, and apply
primarily to morning work trips by passenger vehicles; each trip is assumed to
have afternoon or evening counterpart in the reverse direction. Percentages
include drive-alone, take taxi, and carpool; we converted the latter from
people to vehicles by dividing by size of carpool (carpools greater than 3 were
assumed to have 5 people). Non-commute trips weren’t surveyed but are assumed
to have same geographical distribution as work trips. Commercial-vehicle trips
are discussed in Section 9. Data for 2000 are still being processed by the
Census Bureau.
As Table 1 shows, a third (33.3%) of all trips on the free
East River bridges originate in Brooklyn, with another quarter (24.4%) setting
out from Queens. These two boroughs are followed, at a considerable remove, by
Nassau County, Manhattan and Staten Island. The City’s five boroughs together
account for 77.5% of East River crossings, with the two Long Island counties
accounting for 18.4% and the three New Jersey counties for 4.1%.
|
East River
Bridges’ Shares of County-to-County Trips
|
|
Not all county-to-county trips across the East River use
an untolled East River bridge. Some are taken on one of the three MTA East
River crossings, which together carry almost half as many vehicles as do the
four “East River bridges” (247,200 for the MTA crossings, counting just the
Manhattan Plaza for the Triborough Bridge along with the Brooklyn-Battery and
Queens Midtown Tunnels; vs. 514,767 for the four East River bridges; see NYC
Dept. of Transportation, 2000 Manhattan River Crossings, Dec. 2001).
Percentages in Table 1 (and corresponding numbers in Table 4 below) were
calculated after applying the following fractions:
Bklyn-Manhattan:
84.0% (Bklyn + Manh + Wburg Bridges vs.
Bklyn Battery Tunnel)
Queens-Manhattan:
49.9% (QB Bridge vs. QMT + Triborough
[Manh toll plaza])
S.I.-Manhattan: 75.6% (90% are assumed to cross Bklyn
[with 10% via NJ], of which 84.0% use an East River bridge, per above)
Nassau/Suffolk-Manhattan:
67.6% (all four East River bridges vs.
the 3 MTA crossings above)
Bklyn-Bronx: 50% (40% each on BB and Trib-Bx, vs.
10% each on BBT and Manh Br)
Bklyn-Bergen: 80% (70% BB and 10% Manh B; remainder
is 10% each BBT and Trib-Bx)
Bklyn-Hudson: 80% (50% BB, 20% Manh B, 10% WBB;
rest is 18% BBT and 2% Verrazano)
Bklyn-Essex: 80% (45% BB, 25% Manh B, 10% WBB;
remaining 20% is BBT)
Queens-Essex: 40% (20% WBB and 20% QBB; remaining
60% is QMT)
Nassau/Suffolk-Essex/Hudson:
20% (10% WBB and 10% QBB; remaining
80% is QMT)
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