Bridge Tolls
FAQ |
BTAP Message BoardRe: bye bye NY[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ BTAP Message Board ] Posted by Ian in Brooklyn (24.90.8.23) on December 12, 2002 at 17:35:15: In Reply to: Re: bye bye NY posted by BTAP on December 12, 2002 at 16:02:01: Thanks for your reply. I did in fact read the entire FAQ page, which presents a few very good arguments for imposing tolls on the East River crossings. Of course I support increasing revenue for the City, as well as decreasing traffic. But while you may like the idea of the rich paying for your child's public school education (which I do too), I abhor the idea of the rich having more access to public facilities than other people. I also doubt that the effect on traffic would be as dramatic as your Web site implies. If traffic is decreased then more people would be willing to pay the toll. There are already many well-off people who have cars and would gladly drive into Manhattan but don't because of traffic. Decrease traffic and those people would then pay the toll and drive. I believe tolls would simply remove some of the middle class from the roads, opening them up for the rich. The rich would then fill those empty slots on the bridges with their much larger and more-polluting automobiles -- the ones that get 10 mpg and are loved by Osama & Co. And don't even get me started on a charge per minute for driving through midtown. Either ban all vehicles in midtown or forget it. Why should Donald Trump be able to drive in midtown without a care while the average person can't afford to? Last I checked those were still public streets. You also overstate the simplicity with which tolls can be collected. Do you really think that the City of New York could put together a seamless system that would collect tolls without slowing traffic and causing tie-ups? I don't. Finally, a system that charged $7 round trip at 2:00 a.m. on Wednesday would be outrageous. Rush hour's a different story, but 24-hours-a-day? Traffic's almost always a zero sum game. Stop it from one place and it comes from somewhere else. I think East River tolls would create a two-tiered system, with the rich riding in relative ease above ground while the rest of us are in even more crowded subways below ground. Sincerely,
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