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The Full Plan

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Executive Summary

It is unquestionable that New York City and its suburbs depend on well-funded and maintained transportation infrastructure. Each day, over 11 million people from around the region rely on our commuter rail lines, subways, buses, taxis, highways, bridges, streets, sidewalks, and bicycle lanes to get to work, shop, go to schools and hospitals, visit parks, museums and shows, and unite with family and friends. Yet our system is at a crossroads, where chronic underfunding and traffic congestion threatens to derail the transportation network.

The Move NY Fair Plan described in this document is the only comprehensive proposal currently being considered that would ensure the regional transportation system’s health over the coming decades.

The Move NY Fair Plan is a sustainable solution that will provide toll equity, reduce congestion, boost the regional economy, and raise significant revenues for high-priority road, bridge, and transit projects. When fully bonded, this sum is enough to close the projected funding gap for the MTA’s 2015 – 2019 Capital Plan and deliver vital road and bridge improvements the region’s drivers and truckers depend on to keep New York moving. Moreover, the Move NY Fair Plan will create more than 30,000 new, local, and recurring jobs in the region. A rational and fair tolling system is inevitable in New York City. The time has come to make it happen.


The Move NY Fair Plan
How It Works

The New York metropolitan area relies on a patchwork of state, city, and regional agencies to collect toll revenues on bridge and tunnel crossings leading into and out of the city. The MTA operates seven bridges and two tunnels. NYSDOT operates 605 bridges, and New York City DOT operates 789 bridges throughout the five boroughs, including the East River Bridges — none of which are currently tolled. Poor coordination across these agencies has resulted in toll amounts that vary widely, inconsistent fare payment systems, and significant congestion. Most importantly, the toll levels charged to motorists do not accurately reflect travel demand nor do they appropriately act as a disincentive to drive into the most congested part of the city: Manhattan south of Central Park.

From the perspective of transportation equity, our current tolling system is highly dysfunctional. The highly trafficked East River crossings — the Queensboro Bridge, Williamsburg Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, and Manhattan Bridge — are not tolled. Meanwhile, less congested crossings, such as the Bronx Whitestone Bridge and the Throgs Neck Bridge, have one-way tolls of $5.54 ($8.00 for cash payments). This is problematic given that most of these areas have poor access to rapid transit compared to Manhattan, where the congested East River bridges are not tolled. This effectively incentivizes drivers to “bridge-shop” in search of a cheaper vehicle trip, intensifying congestion in places like Downtown Brooklyn, East Midtown, and Western Queens leading up to these crossings.

Finally, the existing bridge toll system continues to use an outdated model of tollbooths and cash payments that cause significant “bottleneck” congestion throughout the metropolitan area. Only one of the bridges under the MTA’s Bridge and Tunnel Authority, the Henry Hudson Bridge between Manhattan and the Bronx, has been upgraded to cash-less, gate-less tolling.


Conclusion

The Move NY Fair Plan is the only comprehensive proposal that addresses the three interrelated challenges of generating funds for transportation, correcting regressive tolling policies, and reducing traffic congestion. There may be other ways to generate the necessary funds for the transportation network, such as raising the gas or sales taxes, but neither alone could be raised high enough to meet the MTA’s (let alone DOT’s) funding needs. Moreover, the former wouldn’t solve our congestion or toll inequity issues, and the latter would be highly regressive. The Move NY Fair Plan is one that distributes the responsibility for funding the transportation network as fairly as possible among all the network’s users, and includes concrete steps to make the transit system more convenient, reliable, and accessible for all the region’s residents. The Move NY Fair Plan will boost the regional economy with more than 30,000 annually recurring new jobs by making investments that will dramatically boost the system’s efficiency and reduce delays; putting people to work building new lines to underserved areas; and offering pocketbook relief (and thus greater spending power) for drivers and transit users in the city’s periphery