Did toll boosters blow it at a community forum last week in traffic-plagued Brooklyn Heights? Some observers thought so, and offered the following advice to those of us who advocate tolls on the East River bridges. Toll foes on the panel included City Council transportation chair John Liu and a representative of the NY Motor Truck Association.

1.Give Bill Vickrey a Rest.
Bill’s stellar career conjuring pricing solutions to resource-allocation dilemmas won him a Nobel six years ago. Intellectually very compelling, but politically irrelevant.. Tolling the East River bridges isn’t really about raising peak prices (though that should be part of the package). It’s about turning free bridges into pay-for bridges and making subsidized drivers pay their way. Toll proponents should can the “Congestion Pricing 101”and stick to what’s on real people’s minds: improving mobility, being fair, and doing something about the fiscal crisis.

2.Lose the grand schemes.
“Gridlock”Sam Schwartz wants to dump NYC’s “dysfunctional” toll system by instituting “cordon pricing” of traffic into the central business district and eliminating tolls elsewhere. This grand conception intrigued wonks at the City Club last month (MTR #392), and was offered up to Daily News readers last week, but it was a distraction in Brooklyn. Maybe someday the CBD will be fully E-ZPassed and the “outer crossings” made free. But first, tolls must be in place on the East River bridges, generating revenue and demonstrating “boothless toll collection.” One step at a time.

3.Mantra #1: high speed.
“I’ve come a long way in my thinking tonight, ”declared one long-time toll opponent. “Now I’d like to see a gantry-mounted E-ZPass reader in action.” Too bad the panelists neglected to bring a video of working high-speed toll collection systems. If they were attentive MTR readers, they would have been able to point to the functioning high speed E-Z Pass installation at NJ Turnpike exit6, and related that it's coming to the George Washington Bridge and other Port Authority crossings, and that Governor McGreevey has committed to even more high-speed E-ZPass sites along the Turnpike and Garden State Parkway. And their arcane references to “queuing times” only reinforced fears that bridge tolls will make congestion worse, not better. Maybe an Internet analogy would help: Old tolls (2 mph) = snail mail. Current E-ZPass (10 mph) = e-mail with dialup. East River boothless tolls (>50 mph) = Internet via cable modem. No waiting. And next time bring the video.