My $.02

It’s obvious that Staten Island needs more mass transit connections. Here are some options:

Express bus to the Bayonne light rail station, anticipated within the next few months.

Extension of the Hudson-Bergen light rail line across the Bayonne Bridge, anticipated to be built some time before 2020.

Restoration of the North Shore Line across the Arthur Kill bridge to transfer to Northeast Corridor trains at Cranford, NJ doesn’t seem to be on too many people’s radar, but it could be faster than the light rail through Bayonne. Instead, plans seem to be for it to be a branch of the above light rail extension.

Eight dollars isn’t much compared to the pain in the neck involved in getting to the ferry (which is all the way at the northeast corner of S.I. and typically involves a long bus ride), waiting for the ferry (there aren’t that many of them), sitting on the ferry (it’s a long ride and the scenery gets old fast), and then getting to wherever you’re going on the other side (a subway ride for most people). If it was easy then people would already be doing it because it’s free after all.

And the mayor’s congestion pricing plan — which would not affect him and his fellow billionaires — deducts from the $8 the tolls that people pay at places like the Lincoln Tunnel. How much you wanna bet that the Verrazano gets included in that deal in any political agreement that could get this through Albany? That would essentially make Staten Islanders exempt from congestion pricing.

The fact is this current situation on the bridge is caused by construction. There are only six lanes going in either direction. Close one or two of them and it will have a great effect on traffic. Ultimately the most effective way to get people on the ferry will be the congestion itself.

Both the Gowanus Expressway Tunnel option and the Cross-Harbor Freight Tunnel are important projects. Trucks do the most damage to highways, are a menace to others on the road, and are extremely unfriendly to the environment. Building the freight tunnel would remove a great deal of truck traffic from our streets. Everyone benefits (except trucking companies).

The Gowanus Expressway is a disaster. In poor condition, expensive to maintain, and in dire need of full replacement in spite of the millions spent on rehabilitation. It is also a blight on a wide swath of Brooklyn, an enduring monument to Moses’ hubris. The alternatives discussed include a tunnel, but also hare-brained schemes to rebuild the elevated structure, and even to build an even higher viaduct above it.

I simply refuse to accept “not in my lifetime” as an option. Call your reps, your councilman, your senators, and harangue the DOT. These things CAN and WILL happen within our lifetime.

As you and mfs noted, of course many of the V-N motorists are not going to or from Manhattan. But all you have to do is remove the ones who are, and you have less congestion and faster service on the bridge. So while one idea I raised was raising the existing toll, the better solution overall would be to implement congestion pricing as it is being proposed. It is important for people to realize that congestion pricing’s benefits radiate throughout the metropolitan area in unexpected ways.

The Staten Island people would level many more blocks of Brooklyn to improve their commutes and have it paid for with other peoples money. They crowd on the road and complain about the toll on the VN which they get discounted. If there were no VN-TBTA toll imagine how many cars there would be.

And don’t get me started on the Ferry. It is free, thanks to shrewd Giuliani’s need to placate his SI constituency. Biggest bargain in transportation America.

As much as I would be happy to see the elevated Gowanus Expressway replaced with an underground road, I do not expect this to happen within my lifetime.

For commuting purposes, the only alternative to driving is taking an express bus (which still has to sit in the same traffic) or taking the ferry (which is slow, inconvenient, and hard to get both to and from at either end of the trip). So the fact is Staten Island residents in particular are just S.O.L. until the bridge maintenance is complete. Bridges need maintenance to survive, and lanes have to be closed for maintenance.

I agree about the need for better transit options.

I like the congestion pricing idea, but can MTA and NJ transit handle the increased load? I saw Governor Corzine bring that up.

That got me worried actually. My LIRR trip from Bayside is so jam packed during rush hour, that I always stand, and there are lots of people standing in all 10 cars.

This might be something to consider I guess.

But here is an argument for congestion pricing… over 50% of the inbound traffic on the gowanus exp. in the morning originates in Brooklyn neighborhoods such as bensonhurst and bay ridge, not Staten Island or even NJ.