If motorists on some bridges and tunnels get breaks entering Manhattan while others don’t, it runs the risk of clogging traffic at the exempted crossings, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said.
“You will end up causing a congestion nightmare because everybody will be wanting to go the free way,” Heastie said. “It’s not just about double fees and congestion tolling, it’s also how you avoid causing huge traffic nightmares.”
In the final analysis, Heastie said, congestion pricing policies have to balance the need for revenue to maintain a transit system vital to the region’s economy with traditional notions of fairness.
“When you start saying you don’t want to double-toll,” Heastie said, “you start to minimize the receipts,” and that could force lawmakers to impose higher tolls, he continued, as he described the lawmakers’ dilemma with reporters this week. “We’re just trying to fix these things.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.