MTA Adds Insult to Injury

Only three months after it socked it to the residents of Broad Channel and Rockaway by eliminating the Cross Bay Bridge Resident Rebate Program, the MTA Board voted earlier today to, once again, hike the toll on all of its bridges and tunnels.

The authority raised the one-way cash toll at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to $13 from $11 and increased cash tolls on its other major crossings, such as the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, by a dollar, to $6.50. Tolls at some minor crossings were increased by 50 cents, to $3.25.

E-ZPass users were hit with increases of only about 5 percent, compared with 18 percent increases for cash users. The new E-ZPass tolls will be $9.60 on the Verrazano, $4.80 at major crossings and $1.80 at minor crossings. The authority is hoping to persuade more drivers to use E-ZPass to reduce congestion at toll plazas.

The vote was 12 to 1, with Norman I. Seabrook, a board member who is also president of the city correction officers’ union, opposing the increases.
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Effective December 30th, residents of Broad Channel who pay cash to travel back and forth to Rockaway will see the present $2.75 toll rise to $3.25.

Broad Channel residents who utilize E-Z Pass will see the present Resident E-Z Pass discounted toll rise from $1.13 to $1.19.

The MTA has stated that it does not intend to raise bridge tolls again until 2013.

The blatant unfairness of this Cross Bay Bridge resident toll aside, you should also know that if you own a car you already pay a staggering amount of money to support the MTA.

New fees to bail out the MTA have already been imposed on drivers, and, money that was supposed to be used to build and maintain roads, bridges and tunnels has been diverted to the State’s general budget. Examples include...

The MTA annually collects approximately $1.3 billion in toll revenue with one-third, about $470 million, shifted to subsidize mass transit.

A $50 MTA vehicle registration surcharge imposed on the 5.6 million vehicles in the 12 county Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District, totaling more than $281 million, on top of a state-wide 25% registration fee increase, took effect in September 2009.

The petroleum business tax at 16.3 cents on every gallon of gas sold in New York State, 85% of which supports the MTA, totals more than $791 million.

Unless, and until, we elect a functional state legislature which will set aside special interests, political self interest and personal ambitions and work instead to actually represent those who elected them to their office in the first place, we have no one to blame for this mess that is New York State save for ourselves.

You cannot blame the Ship of Fools that is Albany when the Confederacy of Fools (we, the voting citizenry) continually vote to keep that ship afloat!