Three of these bridges - the Bayonne, the Goethals and the Outerbridge Crossing - collect the tolls on traffic heading to Staten Island from New Jersey, and the George Washington Bridge gathers its fee on traffic to Manhattan from New Jersey. Now, a 10-member task force to be appointed by state and city political leaders and transportation officials will examine the tolls on bridges as part of a broader study of transportation issues and make recommendations by the end of the year.įour other bridges have one-way $15 cash tolls, though E-ZPass discounts lower them to $12.50 at peak hours, and $10.50 during off-peak hours. Though most Verrazano travelers pay a discounted E-ZPass rate of $11.52, not the full $17 toll, the bridge has nevertheless emerged as a symbol of the glaring inequities of a transportation system that many see as primarily benefiting Manhattan, while penalizing residents of the other boroughs and the suburbs who drive because they do not have easy access to buses or subways. The debate over congestion pricing is largely over, but it has focused attention on yet another fraught issue for drivers in and around New York City: pricey bridge tolls. They ask, ‘What’s on Staten Island? Are they giving away gold on the streets? Or is it some kind of utopia?’ ” “When I tell colleagues from other states, they are just shocked that we have a bridge that is so expensive. “It’s completely outrageous,” said Nicole Malliotakis, an Assembly Republican whose district encompasses both ends of the bridge in Staten Island and in Brooklyn. It makes the $15 toll on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel in Virginia - a 20-mile expanse of two bridges, two tunnels, and 12 miles of trestles - look like a bargain. The $17 toll to drive across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is more than twice the $7.75 toll to take the far more glamorous Golden Gate Bridge to San Francisco. It just may be the most expensive bridge in the country.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |