Last week, Newsday revisited the Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s February report, developed by Komanoff Energy Associates, urging the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to adopt a time-of-day price scheme when it raised bridge and tunnel tolls. Although the timing of the piece was curious, since the Metropolitan Transportation Authority had rejected the report’s recommendation by approving a flat 50-cent toll increase for all times of day, the Campaign intends to revisit the issue if New York’s appeals court requires the MTA to re-do its toll and fare increase procedure.

The report found that, even with the presence of toll-free city-owned bridges along the East River, variable tolls ($5 in the peak, but no increase from the old $3.50 rate at other times) would produce 1-2 minute time savings per trip for rush hour MTA bridge and tunnel drivers while yielding roughly the same revenue that the MTA sought from its 50-cent proposal (MTR #402).

Most interesting about the Newsday piece was the MTA’s response. A spokesperson told the paper the agency had reviewed the Tri-State Transportation Campaign report, though we received no feedback on the issue whatsoever after an introductory meeting on the topic with MTA officials in October, 2002. The representative also told Newsday the MTA continued to study the issue, and that it would require the cooperation of other toll agencies like the Port Authority to set up a regional incentive toll system.

That is the line the agency has issued on congestion pricing since 1995. Apparently, the MTA press office has a set of programmed sound bites – a quick press of a function key, and up pops the response. Unfortunately, this one hasn’t been updated for about four years, since the MTA’s mouthpiece didn’t know the Port Authority had implemented congestion pricing at its Hudson River crossings in 2000! This is what passes for policy deliberation at the MTA these days.

The Port Authority indeed tried to work with the MTA during the 1990s on a "regional incentive pricing system," but had to forge ahead on its own because of the MTA’s paralysis on the matter.

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