New York-New Jersey
Port Authority applies
for $400 million fare hike
By
G. Dunkel
New York
The
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey owns and operates the bridge and
tunnels that connect New Jersey to New York. These were used by more than
121 million vehicles in 1998.
It
owns the PATH trains that carry people on 65 million trips per year between the
two states.
The
agency, funded by the two states, has an annual budget of $3.6
billion.
So
when the PA announced Nov. 16 that it was applying to raise tolls for cars from
$4 to $7, double the PATH fare from $1 to $2, increase tolls for trucks and
boost fees for New Jersey buses that use its midtown Manhattan terminal, the New
York-New Jersey media might have done a little arithmetic.
Simple
multiplication would have shown that these price hikes will take about $400
million a year from the budgets of working people, the predominant users of
these
crossings.
But
saying the PA wants to raise tolls by $400 million a year would have far more
impact--and potentially incite far more public anger--than saying that tolls
will go from $4 to $7 a trip. The proposal must be approved by the Board of
Commissioners and the governors of New York and New Jersey before it goes into
effect.
Local
newspaper editorials proclaimed that these hikes would be fair, since commuters
coming from or going to New Jersey would then pay the same toll as commuters
coming into Manhattan from the east. PATH riders would pay more than New York
subway riders, but the PATH hasn't had a hike since 1978, they said, so this one
will make up for lost
time.
Reports
on the "unfairness" of the current PATH price ignore the fact that most PATH
users also take the subway after they get into New York. So they pay two fares.
Some commuters have to take a bus to the PATH, so they pay three
fares.
Two
other wrinkles in this proposal need to be examined. One is the idea of
"congestion" pricing--that is, charging users more during rush hour and other
peak times--and the emphasis on spreading E-ZPass to enable this kind of
pricing.
A
real solution to
congestion
E-ZPass
is used from Maine to Virginia. It's a plaque attached to the windshield near
the steering wheel. It is automatically scanned as the vehicle rolls through a
tollbooth. The applicable toll is then deducted from a pre-paid account.
E-ZPass--as
a byproduct of its toll taking--also keeps track of when and where a car has
been.
Once
the New Jersey turnpike was completely equipped with E-ZPass earlier this year,
the Turnpike Authority laid off hundreds of part-time and temporary toll takers.
More layoffs can be expected as more and more cars are equipped with
E-ZPass.
The
Port Authority claims that "congestion" at the Hudson River crossings costs the
New York metro area $9 billion a year. That's another reason being offered to
charge more at certain times of the
day.
But
there's a better, healthier and more obvious way to relieve congestion: Make
mass transit cheap or free. Run more buses and trains into Manhattan on Amtrak
lines. Run more trains to ferry terminals. Build more and bigger PATH trains. If
more drivers and conductors are needed, hire and train laid-off toll
takers.
This
could easily be done by taxing Wall Street stock transactions. It's the bosses,
after all, who profit from the labor of all those people commuting to and from
work.
U.S.
capitalism is so welded to the automobile--that cornucopia of wealth for the
auto and oil companies--that even in New York, the only metropolitan area in the
U.S. where a majority of trips to work are made on public transportation, it's
not seen as an alternative to congestion. Rather it's an excuse for more
convoluted pricing schemes to pull more and more money out of working people's
pockets.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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