MTR 199, NY Senate Transportation Chief Pans Pricing

Mobilizing the Region

Issue 199

December 11, 1998

NY Senate Transportation Chief Pans Pricing

NY State Senate transportation committee chair Owen Johnson says in an interview published in the current edition of the NY Motorist Association magazine that he is against congestion pricing at the MTA's bridges and tunnels and that tolls on New York City's East River bridges will cause worse traffic congestion.

"If the city is to remain viable, it has to have free-flowing traffic between boroughs," said Johnson, of Babylon, Long Island.

Johnson seems ignorant of new barrier-free toll collection techniques now in use around the world, including in a number of important North American highway corridors, and which the MTA's EZ-Pass technology is capable of supporting.

East River bridge toll proposals would be dead on arrival if they involved setting up traditional toll plazas on Queens Boulevard or Delancey Street, but non-stop toll technology makes East River bridge tolls a traffic management tool waiting to be taken advantage of in New York City.

The MTA, Port Authority and NJ toll road authorities could also do their bridge and tunnel customers a favor by beginning to experiment with and plan for barrier-free toll collection arrangements that would remove or minimize toll plazas as bottlenecks on the regional highway network.

Johnson's remark that drivers have already paid for the roads (via taxes) and shouldn't be hit up again, doesn't really apply to the MTA's situation, because the agency already collects tolls from tunnel drivers. But in general, while motorists may have largely paid for the roads, a congestion premium is different in principle than a gas tax that underwrites capital construction. It is an attempt to rationally allocate scarce road space. How proceeds from variable-priced tolls are spent would be a matter for debate -- the public may prefer that peak-period premiums be offset with off-peak discounts.

Johnson also says in the interview that he backs construction of a New York Harbor rail freight tunnel and raising of bridges along the Hudson Line to facilitate freight train access to NYC and Long Island.

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Various forms of barrier-free toll collection are used in:

San Diego I-15's FasTrak system reads transponders in cars using special express lanes with overhead antennae.

Toronto Overhead gantries at entrances and exits to the 407 Express Toll Route detect how far vehicles have traveled and charge tolls accordingly.

Colorado The E-470 around Denver uses a hybrid toll collection approach. Cars can bypass regular toll plazas using two high speed lanes in either direction where overhead readers detect passage of cars with transponders and bill drivers' accounts.

Melbourne The CityLink project under development will be one of the world's largest applications of electronic, barrier-free toll collection technology.