Posted on 09/23/2002 1:10:55 PM PDT by paulklenk
Thomas Golisano, the billionaire third party challenger in the governor’s race, wants to eliminate one of New York State’s most familiar institutions: the toll booth.
Mr. Golisano, who is running for governor on the Independence Party line, said New York should consider removing tolls on its roads, bridges and tunnels.
“By taking away toll booths,” Mr. Golisano told The New York Sun, “we would save a tremendous amount of taxpayer’s dollars by not having the infrastructure to collect all these tolls, and plus we could make people’s lives much more pleasant.”
Mr. Golisano’s position at the intersection of tax-cutting and automotive populism comes at a time when tolls are ascendant, and nowhere more than in New York State. New York collects more money from tolls than any other state in the nation, according to statistics from the Federal Highway Administration.
The state also has the three largest toll-taking institutions in the country: the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and the New York State Thruway Authority, which together took in about $2 billion in tolls last year.
Tolls are fashionable these days, economically speaking. Originally imposed to finance construction, they have also financed the growth of independent empires, like Robert Moses’s Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (now part of the MTA) and the Port Authority.
These days, tolls have also been seen as incentives to keep drivers out of the city and as sources of subsidy for mass transportation.
Economists of the left and the right have been building a consensus in favor of “congestion pricing,” a system under which cars pay to use the city streets according to demand. One of those economists, William Vickrey, was even awarded a Nobel Prize in 1996, in part for his work on pricing public services.
The notion of higher fees at rush hour pleases those who favor market solutions to problems in principle, as well as those who would like to see fewer cars, less traffic, and cleaner air. “E-Zpass” technology makes toll-taking fast and variable pricing feasible. Central London has already implemented special fees, and Mayor Bloomberg has hinted that he likes the idea.
So Mr. Golisano’s proposal is little short of sacrilege to many transportation thinkers: one expert, Jeffrey Zupan of the Regional Plan Association, accused him of “pandering to the electorate.”
“The thing that’s appealing about Golisano’s proposal is that nobody else pays tolls like we do,” Mr. Zupan said. “The reason that tolls are good public policy is because the user pays. Of course no one likes to pay tolls. No one likes to pay for anything.”
But while Mr. Golisano is not exactly in step with the times, he’s right that New York’s tolls are not just user fees. Initially instituted to pay off the bonds that built roads and bridges, they have morphed into an all-purpose revenue stream that helps keep quasi-independent behemoths like the Port Authority in business.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the East River crossings and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, uses most of its toll collection to finance mass transit: of the $924 million it collected in tolls in 2001, $539 million paid for subways, commuter rail, and buses.
The Port Authority took in $693 million from its bridges and tunnels in 2001, most of that in tolls, while the Thruway Authority took in $412 million in tolls.
Mr. Golisano said he supported removing all those tollbooths and putting a roughly $2 billion dollar hole in the agencies’ budgets if “we could find another way to replace the revenue,” but he made no specific suggestions. He opposes tax increases, and has pushed to stop the growth of state government. He also suggested that the state’s public employee rolls and its Medicaid bill are ripe for cuts.
Other states have retired their tolls when they retired the bonds that paid for them. Connecticut, for example, removed all tolls from its turnpike in 1985. Although the state government has recently suggested returning them, the cry of “No Tolls” has proven that it still bears serious political weight.
Mr. Golisano said he opposes tolls in principle because toll-taking is “basically a tax, and I definitely am one to keep taxes down as low as possible.”
While Mr. Golisano’s proposal might save New York drivers money, its value in cutting traffic is more doubtful. The dean of city traffic experts, former traffic commissioner Samuel Schwartz, said removing tolls would have the opposite effect, and would “encourage more car traffic onto an island that already has more cars than it can handle.”
“New York is a city where time is money and space is precious and our air is too thin,” Mr. Schwartz said. “We need clean air, better mobility, more avenues for transportation, dedicated funds to support our bridges and tunnels. I think the gubernatorial candidate needs a lesson in how New York City transportation works.”
Jeffrey Zupan of the Regional Plan Association, accused [Golisano] of “pandering to the electorate.”
That's PRICELESS! How DARE Golisano try to convince the sheeple, er, consumers, er, fodder, er, electorate[!] that they don't owe us a revenue stream. Shocking!
Why, the lobbyists, of course!
What an arrogant S.O.B. talking down to someone like that. Bureaucrats like this need to be filtered out of the system. All they care about is maintaining their job security instead of finding solutions.
Hey Schwartz....F U.
Way back when, up in Washington state a federal judge (Tanner, I believe) ordered the removal of tolls from a bridge because it had been paid for. The tolls were originally setup to pay for the bridge and after they had collected well over the cost someone sued and the judge ruled that the tolls were illegal.
Often the Deptartment of Transportation in various states depend on studies done by pointy headed college professors who are anit-automobile and never have to commute. These professors (this is the case in Washington state) suggest make driving as difficult as possible in order to discourage automobile usage. DOT then sets traffic signals so that you have to stop every block (and use more fuel and pollute more). They do not build sufficient roads to carry reasonable traffic. On street parking is restricted and off street parking is expensive. All of this is a failing attempt at behavioral modification by people who know what is best for everyone else, but do not have to suffer the consequences themselvs.
The stupid politicians didn't get it when I wrote this same piece during the gas crisis in 1974. Further, the morons being paid $50,000 a year to collect the toll fees should be doing something more constructive than confiscating traveller's fees.
Does anyone get this?
Never happens.
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