A prominent option analyzed in the study is complete elimination of the tolls. But traffic generation that would result from a "Staten Island Freeway" was not even considered in the study, despite the study's indication that traffic issues are a primary concern of Staten Island businesses. The report's premise (and interest in congestion pricing) indicates that the authors and sponsors of the study understand that roadway travel demand is price-sensitive. Staten Islanders should question the extent of any additional influx of autos and trucks that would occur if I-278 suddenly became one of the cheap routes through the northeast. Big traffic increases, especially trucks, hit I-287 in northern NJ and the lower Hudson area when the 1993 Suffern link provided a low-cost alternative to I-95.

Lost transit revenues also make toll elimination a city-wide issue, but the study does not explore this problem at all. In 1996, revenue from the Verrazano Narrows Bridge was $178 million -- 22% of total MTA Bridges and Tunnels intake. Roughly three-quarters of MTA toll revenue goes to mass transit -- the Verrazano thus produces about $133.5 million in transit funding annually. In our discussion of the elimination of the MTA's Cross-Bay Bridge toll last week (MTR 146), the Straphangers Campaign's Gene Russianoff noted that toll reduction mania could lead to bad decisions that could come back to haunt the transit system and the city.

The suggestion to examine congestion pricing is the most realistic of the study's recommendations. The study could also have looked at other options to reduce shipping and other business costs by de-congesting Staten Island highways and providing direct alternatives to long-distance trucking. A number of rail freight and intermodal shipping projects with a direct connection to Staten Island are underway now (see next page), and their economic potential deserved more analysis in Molinari's study.

There is no need to wait for additional federal funds to get moving on an analysis of incentive pricing on Staten Island. The NYSDOT's Staten Island Expressway Major Investment Study should already be looking at pricing strategies as an alternative to widening the highway and as a means to avoid construction of a second Goethals Bridge.

At present, however, NYS DOT is undertaking the study with a fixed idea in mind (widening the highway), and seems bent on re-creating the political quagmire it has created in Brooklyn with its inflexible approach to the Gowanus Expressway reconstruction. DOT will likely be hearing a lot more on the content of its Staten Island study in the near future.