| Issue
200 |
December
18, 1998 |
MTA Toll Study Needed
NYC City Council member Kathryn Freed held a press conference
this week to call for pedestrian improvements along Manhattan's Canal Street
and for restoration of tolls in both directions on the Verrazano Bridge.
Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn residents say one-way tolls on the
bridge, an arrangement created in the 1980s, promotes a NJ-NYC traffic
cycle that floods downtown Manhattan with vehicles. Freed's event was
scheduled after a Sunday NY Times article revisited the issue.
The MTA could concretely address this issue - by putting it to rest
or showing a way to relieve downtown gridlock - if it ever gets its stalled
toll policy study off the ground. A request-for-proposals was issued
for the study this summer, but the MTA has not acted on any of the bids
it has received (see MTR #'s 176,
197).
