As Mayor Bloomberg was dropping his bombshell proposal for a $2 billion commuter tax, traffic guru Sam Schwartz was unveiling a radical toll-overhaul plan that he said could generate $500 million in net new revenue while eliminating 160 toll booths and rationalizing New York City’s “dysfunctional” traffic structure.

Schwartz’s plan encircles the Manhattan Central Business District with time-variable electronic tolls — on all northern avenues as well as the four free East River Bridges — while erasing tolls on most TBTA bridges, including the Verrazano, Throgs Neck, Whitestone, Henry Hudson bridges, both Rockaways bridges, and the Queens and Bronx legs of the Triborough.

Schwartz envisions autos paying $12 to enter the CBD during the 6-10 a.m. rush with lower rates ranging down to $2 between midnight and 6 a.m. City residents get one-third discounts (one-half off for CBD residents), while through-trucks are socked $50 per trip through Manhattan south of 60^th Street.

“You want to charge drivers where congestion is worst and transit choices are best,” Schwartz told a City Club audience last Wednesday at the Harvard Club. “This way we can reduce congestion in downtown Brooklyn and Long Island City as well as the CBD and also sneakily reintroduce the commuter tax, get big trucks off city streets, and raise revenues to maintain the bridges and improve transit.”

The plan starkly illustrates the backwardness of New York City’s toll scheme today, where cars and trucks are charged steep tolls on peripheral crossings but can drive into the most congested urban districts in the United States without charge.

Schwartz, perhaps the city’s most-respected transportation expert, called his toll prices “illustrative” and said that estimates of toll impacts by county, and the possible time savings for drivers, were still pending. Some in the audience asked if eliminating tolls on non-CBD crossings went too far; halving them instead could keep $300 million in revenue while still winning political buy-in. The deal would need to be negotiated with the Port Authority and the MTA.

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