Yea, I’d have to say it’s about equity. All New York City bridges should be tolled. There is no legitimate reason some residents should be charged for driving between boroughs, and other residents not. Especially for major crossings.

Oh Man,

Shoot – I’d pay $5/month for bike parking like that at my Office.

It sounds like equity is a major part of your inner conflict. What if there were nominal tolls on all bridges for all residents?

Cheers,

–Ian

I am a bit conflicted.

Many Staten Islanders drive into Manhattan only because they have to, not because they want to. Penalizing these people with extremely high tolls to go from Staten Island to Brooklyn, while a Brooklyn driver gets to cross into Manhattan for free doesn’t seem quite right.

Everyone cites the free ferry, which is extremely beneficial to those living on the North Shore, or near a transit hub along the East Shore. But for many residents, it’s terribly inconvenient and out of the way.

I would support higher tolls if more direct investments were made in borough transportation infrastructure. Not road widening, or new bridges, or any of the things cited as transportation infrastructure among the local political class. But mass transit of the sort that I listed above. I would support charging at all stops of the Staten Island Railway, which is free until the final stop in St George. The policy now is oddly discriminatory in that it charges for anyone who wants to get from Stapleton to St. George (in the north), but not from Annadale to Eltingville (in the south).

But with no prospects on the horizon for these sorts of major initiatives (election day jargon aside), I can’t see the benefit of imposing greater tolls on Staten Island residents, without adequate transit infrastructure in place as an alternative. West Shore light rail has been the subject of dozens of studies, as have North Shore rail reactivation and South Shore ferry service. In the current climate, they simply cost too much.

That being said, these people did make a conscious decision to move to the most car dependent and transit starved borough. They require an outsize portion of city funds, and should have to pay their fair share to drive every day. So…there’s the conflict.

Just trying to understand, are you saying that Staten Island residents should get discounted tolls because driving is faster than taking public transportation?

Cheers,

–Ian

Your first comment made no mention of subsidies. You were talking about fairness, or equity, so I pointed out that the MTA doesn’t use any logical form of it. For all we know, keeping the Brooklyn Bridge free is more of a subsidy to Brooklynites than the express bus subsidy to Staten Islanders. It’s nearly impossible to quantify, so you have no basis for saying Staten Islanders get a “better deal”.

Since the Rumbler’s low frequencies don’t travel up into our apartment, I have come to think it is an improvement over standard sirens.

I don’t know how a ped or cyclist feels near a Rumbler, but I live at 14th and 1st Ave (just below a bunch of hospitals and near a firehouse) and hugely loud siren noise is pretty much our stay-at-home roommate. Some full-volume siren or other (or others) passes by our apartment and sits in our living room with us pretty much every hour.

I was worried when I heard that some ambulances in NYC were Rumblers. But my experience when they pass by our place has turned out to be less harsh than when an older siren does.

The low frequencies are audible up in our apartment, but are not ear-splitting, adrenalin-spiking terrors, like all the higher-frequency sirens are. If emergency vehicles would rely almost exclusively on the rumbler and not the high frequency sirens, perhaps (PERHAPS!) that would actually be a public health improvement…?

Driving is simply faster. More expensive yes, but much faster. Improve access, speed, and availability of mass transit in Staten Island to Manhattan. That’s when people will stop resorting to the only practical means available. Their cars.

A start? West Shore light rail. North shore rail reactivation. Ferries from the South Shore. Dedicated bus only lanes on Hylan Blvd, Victory Blvd, Richmond Ave and Father Capodanno.

We can all complain about Staten Island drivers. But until there are alternatives, I can’t really blame them for choosing the faster option.

Clifford quotes Danziger ambiguously, leaving open whether Danziger considers bicycling or sharing a cab as “very New York.” In truth, there’s nothing more “New York” than reliably getting from point A to point B faster than by cab, subway or black car (parking and planning time included) and offsetting any need to vist the gym, at the same time. And it’s easy to look good doing it.

But I’ll freely admit my jealousy when it comes to that Conde Nast employee parking facility!

Actually express buses are far more subsidized than local buses or subways (except maybe local SI buses), since they actually collect far less fare revenue per driver pay hour. And they carry almost nobody in off-peak hours, with the drivers sitting around at the depot, getting paid.

And the City operates the SI Ferry without asking for any fare.

The City and State (the State via the MTA) have been bending over for years to give SI a better deal than anyone else on transportation, out of fear of SI swing voters.

“But the closure scores an A+ for making the Square a better place to be, as New Yorkers would be happy to tell you if they could fight through the hordes of European tourists and actually visit it.”

SI residents actually already pay 100% more- express bus fares are double that of subways and regular buses- for what is essentially the same service- traveling to Manhattan.

If you are looking for an equitable way of paying for transportation, you’ll have to work very hard to find it. Tolls are priced into everything in SI- housing, cost of food, etc- because it is not a self-sufficient economy, so the taxes, including MTA and gas taxes, Staten Islanders pay are also different from what they would’ve been without the tolls.

Then there are the questions of whether one should pay based on distance, usage, speed, etc. None of these methods are truly taken into account in the current transportation pricing system.

link from above:

It’s the only way to “make commuting financially tolerable,” for Brooklynites, to paraphrase the SI Advance.

Gridlock Sam’s congestion pricing scheme is looking better because of this.

Slideshow: http://www.gridlocksam.com/congpri.pdf

Toll the bridges into Manhattan, where good transit options exist and remove the tolls on outer borough highways.

Of course, this will take an unprecedented amount of political maneuvering to pull off, but maybe, just maybe, the thought of charging Staten Islanders full price on the VNB would be enough to get it done.

(I think that Sam envisions keeping the overall amount of toll monies collected constant, but I say you might as well get an extra $Billion a year for the MTA while you’re at it.)