Transit Advocates Unveil ‘Fair’ Toll Plan

By ANNA GLEKSMAN

A transit activist group introduced a plan on Tuesday to revamp the local toll system creating new tolls on all East River bridges and tunnels and charging drivers to enter Manhattan’s core, while lowering outer borough tolls.

The group contended that the changes would make toll collection more fair.

The organization called, Move NY, proposed at a Manhattan press conference charging an E-Zpass toll of the $5.54 on the four East River crossings as well as drivers crossing 60th Street in both northbound and southbound. The tolls, charged via license cameras or mobile apps would be implemented on the Ed Koch Queensboro, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges.

Group leaders said the plan could generate $1.5 billion in annual revenue., 25 percent of which would go to improving roads and bridges and the rest to mass transit. Organizers reasoned that using the money for roadway infrastructure might overcome the objections by legislators and motorists whose opposition killed a similar “congestion pricing” plan put forward by Mayor Bloomberg in 2008.

The proposal also envisioned reducing tolls by $2.50 each way on EZ pass and $5 cash on such outer borough bridges as Verrazano-Narrows, Triborough, Whitestone and Throgs Neck. Tolls on the Henry Hudson, Cross Bay and Marine Parkway bridges would fall by $1.

Move NY is led by former City Traffic Commissioner Samuel Schwartz .

Lawmakers and local officials have not yet weighed in on the plan, which, political observers and transit experts agree, would face tough sledding in Albany.