Photo credit: Jeff Simmons

New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. holds a news conference on December 7, 2008 to announce his opposition to establishing tolls along the East and Harlem River bridges. Thompson was joined by a number of elected officials (from left to right): Senator Eric Adams, Assembly Member Jose R. Peralta, Council Member David I. Weprin, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Senator-elect Daniel L. Squadron, Council Member John C. Liu, and Senator Toby Ann Stavisky.

View Thompson’s registration fee proposal
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Joined by City and State legislators, New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. expressed his opposition to tolls on the East and Harlem River bridges and promoted his proposal for a weight-based automobile fee as a more equitable revenue stream.

Thompson renewed his call in the wake of Thursday’s report by the Commission on Metropolitan Transportation Authority Financing calling for measures to address shrinking revenue at the MTA. Plans calls for new tolls, a payroll tax, cuts in subway, bus and commuter rail service, and a potential fare hike.

“While I support and applaud the Commission’s efforts, I am very concerned about the impact of its recommendation for new tolls on the East River and Harlem River bridges on the people of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx,” Thompson said. “The bridge toll proposal includes massive start-up and administrative costs and would drain an estimated $400 million from the $1 billion collected to construct and administer the toll collection system. My plan is the more cost-effective approach.”

Expected to join Thompson today were: Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, State Assembly Members Joan L. Millman and Jose R. Peralta, Senators Eric Adams, Kevin S. Parker and Toby Ann Stavisky, Senator-elect Daniel L. Squadron, and Council Members John C. Liu and David I. Weprin.

“Tolling the East River bridges amounts to a back-door approach to ‘congestion pricing’ and would unfairly burden Brooklynites and all outer-borough commuters, including those on Staten Island, who are already overburdened by tolls and underserved by public transit,” Markowitz said. “Contrary to the assumption that only rich people have cars, many outer-borough residents in areas underserved by mass transit are often less affluent, and rely on vehicles for their livelihoods. These tolls are basically an attempt to balance the transit system’s books on the backs of working people and small businesses.”

“Putting tolls on the East and Harlem Rivers will be too much of a burden for working-class New Yorkers,” Peralta said. “We will look into finding alternate ways to produce revenue at the State level.”
“The East River and Harlem River bridges are under the jurisdiction of the City Department of Transportation, and are, in reality, an extension of city streets,” said Stavisky, a Senate Transportation Committee member. “The next thing we know, the City will want to put a toll on 59th Street and charge you to walk from Second to First Avenue. This is congestion pricing Act II; it was wrong then and it’s wrong now. To balance its budget, the MTA should look at its real estate assets to see which of its buildings can be sold. The MTA also should attempt to streamline its headquarters operation.”
Liu, who chairs the Council’s Transportation Committee, stated: “The proposal to toll the East and Harlem River bridges is highly divisive and will only tear the City apart, setting borough against borough. Furthermore, tolls are extremely inefficient since $1 billion in tolls would need to be collected to achieve net revenue of $600 million. A better way to generate funds for mass transit would be to increase the proposed payroll tax to 0.46% - instead of 0.33% - to achieve the same target revenue.”

“Instead of charging tolls, why not bring back the Commuter Tax?” asked Weprin, who chairs the Council’s Finance Committee. “Revenue from the tax could be dedicated to specific uses that are likely to benefit commuters, such as transportation infrastructure, police, fire, and sanitation. Placing tolls at these crossings is effectively another tax burden on the already economically strapped citizens of New York City; we must find solutions that don’t continue to hurt the outer-borough residents, the taxpayers and the small businessperson.”

Despite his concerns about new tolls, Comptroller Thompson embraced another component of the Commission’s plan: a Mobility Tax of one-third of a percent on payrolls in the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District (the 12 New York counties covered by the MTA). That alone would generate $1.5 billion.

“This affords us an opportunity to provide some relief to small business owners in paying those payroll taxes,” Thompson said. “I am recommending that we look for ways to exempt the smallest businesses from the proposed Mobility Tax, possibly through a threshold that applies either to annual revenue generated or a firm’s number of employees. Especially in this time of economic distress, we must continue to ensure that we do everything we can to help small businesses to grow and expand.”

At today’s news conference, Thompson renewed his pitch to impose a weight-based registration fee on private and commercial vehicles. The plan – available at www.comptroller.nyc.gov - would annually generate more than $1 billion in regional revenue for the MTA while promoting energy independence and easing parking shortages in New York City neighborhoods.

Thompson also has called for the reinstatement of the Commuter Tax, which would add approximately $762 million in annual revenue. Together, the weight-based fee and the Commuter Tax would generate more than $1.8 billion in annual transit funding.

Currently, New Yorkers register their cars for a flat vehicle use tax of $30 every two years in addition to weight-based State registration fees, which annually generates $28 million. Raising the average fee by $200 would generate an additional $365 million in annual revenue from City residents and more than $1 billion from the 12 New York counties covered by the MTA.

Thompson proposed a new, additional, weight-based transit-dedicated assessment of $100 for vehicles weighing 2,300 pounds or less, plus $.09 for every pound of curb weight over 2,300. Under such a fee structure, a Toyota Yaris, a light and fuel-efficient vehicle with a curb weight of 2,293 pounds, would cost an additional $100 to register, while a Lincoln Navigator, one of the heaviest and least fuel-efficient vehicles with a curb weight of 5,963 pounds, would cost an additional $430 to register.

Thompson said the fee could be phased-in over time, allowing residents to take the fee into account when making auto purchasing decisions. He noted that New Yorkers who own cars generally have higher incomes; therefore, the fee structure would impact New Yorkers with lower incomes to a lesser degree than seeking to raise revenues by raising transit fares.

In addition to creating additional revenue for public transportation, Thompson said the fee would bring other positive effects. Such a fee would encourage fuel efficiency by providing residents an added incentive to purchase lighter, more fuel-efficient vehicles. The fee essentially would raise the cost of owning a car in New York City, thereby reducing auto ownership to some degree, resulting in additional parking due to a smaller amount of cars being parked, as well as the smaller size of the more fuel-efficient cars.

The fee could further be coupled with Department of Transportation-restricted parking zones in residential neighborhoods, within which only New York City-registered vehicles could park overnight. This measure would act as a disincentive for residents to register vehicles in other jurisdictions in order to evade weight-based fees.

“My proposal makes sense for many reasons,” Thompson said. “First, compared to the other revenue-generating ideas proposed by the Ravitch Commission, it is less sensitive to swings in our local economy. It is also incredibly simple to administer, and there are no extra or hidden costs. There is no infrastructure to build; no special billing system to create, no need to chase down drivers…I hope the State Legislature gives my alternative proposal the serious consideration it deserves as it takes up the recommendations of the Ravitch Commission.”