Bridge And Tunnel Tolls Take A Hike

Ouch!! 8 bucks just to cross into the city. Will DeCamp now try to raise their prices some more? Their initial reason was oil price. Now this.

I figure it costs an average of fifty bucks just to enter NYC these days. Toll, parking, Metro card. All with prices rising. Good grief!

This poll makes little sense. Any price to avoid DeCamp? But train ticket prices aren't rising...

I wouldn't mind paying double, if the city would implement Bloomberg's traffic plan.

"I wouldn't mind paying double, if the city would implement Bloomberg's traffic plan."

Amen!

Me too. Hell, let's raise the toll to $20. I can afford it and I'd like to be able to drive my Hummer in the city without all that riff-raff traffic.

I applaud the Bloomberg/Walleroo plan to restrict New York to affluent drivers only.

It's about time!

"I applaud the Bloomberg/Walleroo plan to restrict New York to affluent drivers only."

New York -- Where the Affluent Meet the Effluent!

(p.s. can we start charging fees for other public use areas too? There are too many of the "unwashed" in some of our parks. We can call it the "sustainable parks preservation initiative". )

this is actually a land grab by the port authority. bloomberg's proposed congestion plan will charge $8 to enter below 86th or 96th street, but will be discounted by the hudson river tolls. So the Port Authority is grabbing the extra $2 now that would have gone to NYC.

I never drive in before 9:30 am, so I'm safe!

Thank goodness Liz is safe! I was worried.

ROC, you ignorant slut, why should the city charge NJers 8 bucks to drive into the city when LIers and Westchesterites come for nothing? This is just another form of that favorite NY pasttime called Let's Screw Jersey. What would be the world according to ROC? Would you have the "free market" rule--all traffic all the time in the city center, love it or leave it?

Ah, that's more like it... :)

If only Bloomberg had called it the Bloomberg/Walleroo plan, it might have passed.

Oh, walleroo, and here I thought taxes were for other things besides behavior modification.

But count me as in favor of this and all the other new tax ideas you social engineers have planned?

Green house energy taxes? Love'em. I can afford it! And the thought that all those Johnny Sad-Sacks will be shivering in their sweaters (while clutching portraits of Jimmy Carter to their chests) while I'll bask in my undies all winter makes it all the more worthwhile.

I love neo liberalism!

"There are many who still do not believe that global warming is a problem at all. And it's no wonder: because they are the targets of a massive and well-organized campaign of disinformation lavishly funded by polluters who are determined to prevent any action to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming out of a fear that their profits might be affected if they had to stop dumping so much pollution into the atmosphere." ~ Al Gore

By no automotive route I know, walleroo, do Long Islanders drive into the city for "nothing." They always have to pay a toll on their way back out to the Island. Westchester is a slightly different matter, but use of the Henry Hudson Bridge certainly entails tolls as well.

But count me as in favor of this and all the other new tax ideas you social engineers have planned?

So, NY shouldn't look to reduce congestion, and therefore among other things, pollution? If so, how would you suppose they do it?

Often, the link between population

growth and the environment is reduced to an

issue of numbers: too many people and too

few resources. But the larger picture is more

complex. Interactions between humans and

our natural environment are overlapping and

interdependent. Our coexistence on this

planet necessitates respecting this delicate

balance. However, with the 6.1 billion people

populating our earth—requiring more space,

more food, more air, more water, more

natural resources—we disrupt this balance,

bringing serious threats to our planet–and

ourselves.

To change our future we need to rethink

the ways we use our dwindling resources by

examining how the complicated and multiplied

effects of population, consumption level,

and technology are jointly responsible for the

impact on our resources and the environmental

problems we experience today.

• Our world population has grown more

since 1950 than it has in the previous

four million years. With these additional

people come additional

demands on our earth: eighty percent

of the original rain forests have been

cleared or degraded; one-third to onehalf

of the Earth’s land surface has

been transformed.

• We lose one or more entire species of

animal or plant life every 20 minutes—

some 27,000 species a year. This

rate and scale of extinction has not

occurred in 65 million years.

• Currently, 505 million people live in

countries with water- stress or waterscarce

conditions. By 2025, almost 48%

of the Earth’s population–between 2.4

and 3.4 billion people–will be living in

areas of water stress or scarcity. This

freshwater shortage could intensify difficulties

in meeting human consumption

levels, and wreak devastating effects on

our delicately balanced ecosystems.

• Only 0.3% of the planet’s water is

available for human use. Due to

mismanagement, over 40% of the

groundwater in the U.S. is contaminated

by industrial, agricultural, and

household pollution, making it

extremely difficult and costly to purify.

• It takes 23 times more water to produce

1 ton of beef than it does to produce

1 ton of grain. Only about 2.5 billion

people could be fed on a diet comparable

to a developed country diet, in

which approximately 35% of calories

are derived from animal sources.

• Americans are only 5% of the world’s

population, yet we consume 25% of

the world’s re s o u rces. Resulting social

and environmental problems re v e r b e rate

around the world.

• Six million acres of prime farml

a n d—an area the size of Vermont

—w e re lost in the United States alone

between 1982 and 1992. Four of those

six million acres were usurped by

urban and suburban expansion. The

other 2 million acres were lost

t h rough erosion caused by defore s t ation,

unsustainable farming practices,

and animal over-grazing.

• While the number of people living in 58

US metropolitan areas rose 80%

between 1950 and 1990, the land covered

by those areas expanded 305%.

This urban sprawl not only impinges on

wildlife and ecosystems on the

encroached land; it affects life everyw

h e re through higher carbon dioxide

levels and increased global climate temperatures

due to greater commutes.

The continued effects of our sprawling,

car dependent cities include rises in sea

level, harsher and more frequent heat

waves, and more serious and potentially

lethal health effects from pollution.

• One U.S. citizen consumes about 30

times as much as a citizen of India. If

everyone on earth lived like the average

North American, it would require four

more earths to provide all the material

and energ y.

• Although the U.S. accounts for less

than 5% of the world’s overall population,

we produce 25% of all greenhouse-

gas emissions. In 50 years the

U.S. will add 114 million people and

Africa an additional 1.2 billion. Yet, it’s

expected that the carbon emission for

the U.S.’s 114 million will be the same

as for Africa’s 1.2 billion.~http://www.populationconnection.org/

What ROC would prefer, if I may be so bold and speak for him (he's rather shy), is some kind of communist-style system whereby importance to the party would determine who gets to enter Manhattan.

""There are many who still do not believe that global warming is a problem at all."

I'll have you know that I bought offsetts for my Hummer (!) at the suggestion of the Gorical Himself, so you're barking up the wrong tree there.

I am clean!

Gore's actually my hero. His mansion uses 20 times the energy of the average American home, no sweater for him! Hero, my hero!

"So, NY shouldn't look to reduce congestion, and therefore among other things, pollution?"

I am not getting through here, am I.

It's fine, I am okay with it. I can afford the higher cost and with all those "little people" off the road (who can't afford it) I am doubly happy with the program.

Really, I don't mind paying more for the finer things in life. If we are going to start reserving public spaces and resourses for only those who can afford it, where do I make my reservation?

goodnightgracie brings up some interesting points.

We should tax drinking water, beef and housing much more heavily. Why should the serfs live like we do, huh?

Taxes, taxes, TAXES, TAXES! are the answer!

And there you have it folks: ROC.

my heeeeero!

"• One U.S. citizen consumes about 30

times as much as a citizen of India. If

everyone on earth lived like the average

North American, it would require four

more earths to provide all the material

and energ y."

Well, then someone ought to tell all those bastards in the third world to knock it off then, right? Selfish jerks, trying to make their lives like ours, trying live better. Don't they love Mother Earth? Don't they realize we only have ONE earth? They should remain in their sorry, putrid state for the whole of their 40-year lives for the sake of Gaia!

Look out for road-raging Hummer drivers.

Taxes, taxes, TAXES, TAXES! are the answer!

No, of course complaining about them is! That, and sarcasm!

Can we draft you to run for Governor ROC? A man of ideas like yourself needs to be be running for the highest offices.

Having to support these massive road systems so that every person in New Jersey can drive their 2 ton car is bad engineering and a bad investment. When 1 bus can get 20 cars off the road the solution is clear – more public transportation. Instead of investing in expansive road projects we need to invest in trains, trolleys, and buses.

Sarcasm? wha?

Look this tax thing is a win - win -win situation.

All the cretins get off the roads (and out of my way). This gives the poor people a way to help out and contribute - they'll take a bus. Then we'll all have a cleaner world for our children and their bus-taking children. Not to mention those striving third-worlders (once they learn to stop striving and pitch in by embracing their sustainable, natural and short life style).

We must all do our part.

Go lasermike!

"Having to support these massive road systems so that every person in New Jersey can drive their 2 ton car is bad engineering and a bad investment. When 1 bus can get 20 cars off the road the solution is clear – more public transportation. Instead of investing in expansive road projects we need to invest in trains, trolleys, and buses."

I tend to agree. It's like the travel and vacation "industry" isn't it? Bunch of bloodsuckers encouraging people to commit all manor of unnecessary-travel-carbon- generating sins. Perhaps it's time to outlaw travel agencies!

Vacations are all so unnecessary especially when we have so many local activities which could occupy our time. Like expeditions with Queer Studies majors to Edgemont Park to hunt small game, for example.

Ok, 'bye now.

I tend to agree. It's like the travel and vacation "industry" isn't it? Bunch of bloodsuckers encouraging people to commit all manor of unnecessary-travel-carbon- generating sins. Perhaps it's time to outlaw travel agencies!

Two more posts taking things to their illogical extreme, yet nary an answer to my original question: If you're so against congestion pricing, yet agree that pollution needs to be reduced, how do we go about it?

Of course, I probably err in assuming that you even believe in pollution, given your belief that global warming is for the most part "natural."

ROC brings up the energy usage of Gore's house. But Gore has also bought himself offsets, much like ROC, in bringing global warming to the planet's attention (or at the very least our pollution), aiming for reduction and improved quality of life.

As for taxes: I have no problem with taxing the hell out of smug arrogant hummer drivers. After all, they can afford it.

Sounds like ROC wants someone from queer studies to hunt his small game.

"If you're so against congestion pricing, yet agree that pollution needs to be reduced, how do we go about it?"

How many times can I say it? We SHOULD do "affluencey" pricing (or congestion pricing, or whatever you want to call it). It's a great idea! It will work, if you raise the cost artificially, then lots of people won't be able to afford it and they won't do it. It works!

Let's do even more! The airports are crowded, so let's quadruple the taxes. Less crowded airports will mean less flights and less pollution! I, for one, HATE waiting in line behind a bunch of coach-slobs in Terminal C and would love for this problem to be solved.

Taxes solve problems!

"ROC brings up the energy usage of Gore's house. But Gore has also bought himself offsets, much like ROC, in bringing global warming to the planet's attention (or at the very least our pollution), aiming for reduction and improved quality of life."

ANOTHER WIN-WIN-WIN SOLUTION!

Gore's spreads the word, the carbon offsett company he founded profits finacially, and all the pollution generated by his 10,000 square foot home (with 8 bathrooms! did I mention he's my hero?) vanishes from the face of the earth (right?)!

win-win-win

if you raise the cost artificially

I disagree that this is raising the costs 'artificially.' If the end goal is to reduce pollution, how much would it cost to achieve this goal using some other method? Pay now or pay later.

Taxes solve problems!

They certainly do more than anything you've suggested!

Take the "Rush Hour Luxury Fee" that ROC is so in favor of and apply the bulk of this new revenue to actually improving NJ's mass transit infrastructure / off setting the cost of transit passes for people in need.

If that's what the increase is going to be spent on, then sure, go ahead and jack up the cost. Lord knows I'd take the train into Manhattan if it ran past 11pm or if I could take a bus to my mom's house in Morris County from NYC without 2 transfers and waiting an hour at the transfer stop.

While we’re at it, let’s impose a “gas guzzler” tax payable whenever ROC has to renew the registration on his Hummer… but, only if the added fee is actually going towards programs designed to help the environment. Hey, s/he can afford it!

By no automotive route I know, walleroo, do Long Islanders drive into the city for "nothing." They always have to pay a toll on their way back out to the Island. Westchester is a slightly different matter, but use of the Henry Hudson Bridge certainly entails tolls as well.

That's true, if LI-ers insist on using the Midtown Tunnel. But if they take the 59th St bridge, there's no toll there (yet). For Westchester and CT, they have the option of bailing at Dyckman St before the toll and cutting over to the Deegan. (There's a way to get there from the FDR too, but I've never done that.) Just sayin'.

Generic and Mike91,

Oh yes. That this tax money will be 100% directed towards mass transit simply goes without saying.

That's always the way it works, never fear. Just like social security.

ROC,

Hence the word "If" as the qualifier of my accepting the plan.

Since you and I both know how likely that is to happen (last time I checked, snow balls were still melting in Hell), I'm not a fan.

"ff the end goal is to reduce pollution, how much would it cost to achieve this goal using some other method? Pay now or pay later."

I've already achieved that goal (as has my hero Al Gore). I have completely erased the carbon footprint of my Hummer for a mere $80 per year. My hummer has ZERO emmissions.

So I am not so sure "tolls" are the most efficient way. After all only 10 cars entering Manhattan and my carbon for the WHOLE YEAR is erased.

Probably, the most efficient way to end car pollution would be to have the government buy everyone an indulgence, I mean an offsett for their car from Gore's company. As Al and I well know It's pretty cheap to erase your carbon footprint entirely.

(I actually wasn't going to buy a Hummer until I found out how cheap it would be to make it emmission free.)

Carbon offset provides funds of reforesting and forest management projects. It’s a step in the right direction at this point.

Quarkwiz, I seriously doubt anyone driving in from the Island goes down Northern or Queens Boulevard to eventually get on the 59th Street Bridge. Too many lights and too much traffic. The characters in "The Great Gatsby" apparently did this, but they had no choice in the 20's.

As for getting off at Dyckman Street, I don't get your geography. Dyckman runs river to river, east-west, and to get off at the exit for it when going north, while avoiding the Henry Hudson tolls, will take you nowhere near the Major Deegan. Unless, maybe, you plan to cross the East River at one of those bridges near the former site of the Polo Grounds or Yankee Stadium, that is, then to get on the Deegan.

Against either of your suggested routes, toll roads are a better bet. But since it was walleroo to whom I was originally replying, perhaps he simply intended to bound through the toll booths while taking his chances with the marksmanship of cops attached to the bridges and tunnels.

And mikey, cut the crap. When was the last time you were even on a bus? Heading to NYC? Or on a trolley? (Can you even name cities which have trolleys other than SF?) I don't get a sense of adventurism much past the Bloomfield you reside in from any of your posts, let alone of your own progress towards carbon offsets. I realize you style yourself a concerned environmentalist, but the truth is that you do about as much as anyone else towards global warming. Meaning zilch. Being away for a week just makes me realize what a tiresome, repetitive nitwit you are.

The "trolleys" of yesteryear have been reincarnated as the "light rail" systems of today, with varying degrees of success. The Bergen-Hudson Light Rail seems to be particularly successful, no doubt in part to booming redevelopment of northeast New Jersey's "Gold Coast", but I suspect the light rail is symbiotically contributing to the desirability of the waterfront redevelopment.

The NJ Transit "River Line" between Camden and Trenton, on the other hand, sadly seems to be a mass-transit solution in search of a mass-transit problem.

Aside from SF, when I think "trolley", I think of Boston, with its extensive "T" lines; indeed, the green line runs above ground along Commonwealth Ave for much of it's length. I've never really needed a car anytime I've visited Beantown (aside from driving there, when I've not flown) and I think the "T" is great. I wish we had something like that around here, although the Newark Light Rail isn't bad for getting to Newark Penn Station to catch a train into the city on the weekends (alas, there are no parking spaces to be had during the week at the Bloomfield Grove Street station parking lot).

Here is a list of US light rail.
http://www.apta.com/links/transit_by_mode/lightrail.cfm

If you are concerned about my energy consumption I post it on my blog, left side block.
http://goldfinchtech.org

Problem with the T, Pork Roll (or The Rattler, as we call it), is that it shuts down at or before closing time for the bars. Try finding a cab on Commomwealth Avenue when you have just closed down the Hampshire House, the temperature is 4 below, and the Montral Express is roaring down the Charles. Trust me, I've been there... :)

Cathar wrote:
Quarkwiz, I seriously doubt anyone driving in from the Island goes down Northern or Queens Boulevard to eventually get on the 59th Street Bridge. Too many lights and too much traffic. The characters in "The Great Gatsby" apparently did this, but they had no choice in the 20's.

I used to live in Queens, near the Maurice Ave exit. The LIE was an unpleasant and unavoidable part of life, so I know all too well that it's easy to take it just far enough west to exit at Van Dam, drive a few blocks north, turn left on Queens Blvd for another few blocks, and there's the bridge. Believe me, many people take that detour to avoid the toll.

As for getting off at Dyckman Street, I don't get your geography. Dyckman runs river to river, east-west, and to get off at the exit for it when going north, while avoiding the Henry Hudson tolls, will take you nowhere near the Major Deegan. Unless, maybe, you plan to cross the East River at one of those bridges near the former site of the Polo Grounds or Yankee Stadium, that is, then to get on the Deegan.

I used to live in CT, so this is another one I remember well. See, you just take the Dyckman exit, you don't continue all the way across on the same street. You turn left on Broadway, cross the B'way Bridge, then turn right at 225th to get to the Deegan on-ramp. It's not all that far, and if you're really broke all that toll avoidance adds up.

Too bad we don't have such options in NJ. I just hope NJT waits a LITTLE while before goosing our fares again; that last hike hurt.

Quarkwiz, I drive Broadway from Dyckman to 218th a few times every yearand that's enough, it's slow, dangerous going. If you drove it regularly, there's more of Dale Earnhardt in your DNA than in my own.

Mikey, there is nothing about your life that remotely interests me. Especially your wretched little attempt at a blog. Are you one of those souls who hates to have an unpublished thought, laserlad? Even if those thoughts are few in coming and cliched?

No matter, I'm happy for you that you now have a new toy. Yet you don't seem, based on the 2 times I visited your blog, to be attracting any responses. Must be lonely out there in the blogosphere for ya, eh, mikey?

Quarkwiz, I drive Broadway from Dyckman to 218th a few times every yearand that's enough, it's slow, dangerous going. If you drove it regularly, there's more of Dale Earnhardt in your DNA than in my own.

Ha. Well, that was when I was in my 20s, when I was a much more aggressive driver. Nowadays I might not think it was so much fun. I bow to your more-current-than-mine knowledge!

Who still actually drives into the city anymore, anyway?