Toll Roads

[Waz]

I know I'm not the only one fed up with the New York State Thruway Authority and the issue of raising the tolls. What is really bugging me about the issue of the tolls is how we in Western New York are again paying for down state. Why? The Buffalo News had an article on the toll rate increase in the April 18, 2005 edition and it pointed out how the NYS Thruway Authority inherited two different sections of interstate and the canal. My feelings are, if you use it, you pay for it. Those two sections of interstate should pay tolls if the Authority uses toll monies to maintain them; the same with the canal.

Here's a novel idea, how about eliminating the tolls all together?! Most other states pay for their interstate roadways with federal dollars. I know we really are paying for it, but it seems less painful not having to pay a toll every time you go to work.

[Night Owl]

NEW YORK STATE THRUWAY FINANCIAL REQUIREMENTS AND PROPOSED TOLL ADJUSTMENTS 2005-2010

INTRODUCTION
The New York State Thruway is the backbone of the State's transportation system. Since its construction more than 50 years ago, it has provided safe and efficient transportation for millions of users annually. Since its inception, the Thruway has served over 255 billion vehicles across New York State. In 2003, Thruway users traveled over 10.8 billion vehicle-miles on the highway, averaging almost 29.6 million miles a day. Serving commercial traffic as well as commuters, business trips and recreational travel, the Thruway is a vital element in sustaining and promoting the economy of the State. It is therefore essential to maintain the
high level of safety and service provided in terms of safe and smooth riding conditions, sufficient capacity, sound bridges and modern customer service facilities. To date, the Authority has successfully met the needs of its customers. But, as the physical facilities have surpassed the half-century mark, the Authority must address the increasing needs and cost of the capital program to rehabilitate and replace major components of its aging infrastructure. There is also a continuing need to improve operating conditions for safe and efficient travel and to take measures to address the increasing congestion at critical locations. Because the Thruway Authority receives no State tax funding as subsidy, it must meet its commitments primarily through user charges for the services provided. Therefore, from time to time, the Thruway must increase its user fees to continue to serve its customers and to fulfill its role in supporting the State's economy.

http://www.thruway.state.ny.us/news/...ladjreport.pdf

[hacktivist]

What I find extremely irritating is the toll on the Grand Island bridge as well as the 190. As if the city is not dying fast enough, they must charge a little toll to hasten the demise.

If the NYC sections I-287 and I-84 don't pay tolls, why should we have to on 190 and the GI Bridge?

Here's the Buffnews article text:
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Escaping Thruway tolls
ALBANY - Before today is over, about 145,000 vehicles will have traveled on Interstate 287, an 11-mile highway that cuts across Westchester County.

About 40 miles north, another 69,000 vehicles will travel on Interstate 84, a 72-mile road that traverses the Hudson Valley and is a major conduit to and from New England.

Both are part of the New York State Thruway system - yet not a single car or truck will pay a penny in tolls to use them.

Instead, all those motorists on the rest of the Thruway - including the ones making the daily commute between the Southtowns and Buffalo, or from Grand Island to Buffalo - are subsidizing those downstate roads.

There's more. Thruway drivers also are the chief source of money of four canals, including the Erie Canal, which would have dried up years ago were it not for the Thruway tolls that go to maintain the locks, bridges and the waterway that carries a relative blip of boating traffic.

Now the Thruway Authority is looking to hike tolls on the 426-mile mainline part of the Thruway, the nation's longest toll road. Passenger car tolls would rise 25 percent and commercial tolls by at least another 35 percent and in some cases as high as 100 percent. Approval of the increases is expected next week.

But no one has suggested asking the thousands of travelers along I-287 and I-84 to begin paying tolls to fund the operations of those highways, and there is no plan to demand pleasure and commercial boaters to chip in more to use the canal system.

For Thruway drivers, their subsidies have been sizable. Since 1991, Thruway users have seen more than $750 million of their toll money shifted for the operations of the 80 miles of interstates 84 and 287 that the Thruway Authority maintains, the 524-mile canal system that winds its way across upstate New York and other nonmainline uses, according to government documents and interviews with Thruway officials.

Truckers air views

While motorists may not realize their Thruway tolls help subsidize other highways and the canals, it hasn't escaped the trucking industry.

"They're making us pay for something that we'll never get any use out of," said Eric Hoxsie, chief financial officer of Hazmat Environmental Group, a Lackawanna trucking company that will see its $10,000-a-month mainline Thruway toll bill rise by 58 percent under the toll hike proposal.

Hoxsie and others believe the state should put tolls on the two downstate highways, or at least shift them off the Thruway's books. Not doing so "penalizes upstate New York for roads that people near New York City ought to be paying for themselves," he said.

They also believe the state should look at ways to fund the canal system - either selling it, getting the federal government to take it over or shifting it to a state fund - that will spread its costs to all New Yorkers.

Interstate 287 was transferred from the Department of Transportation to the Thruway Authority in 1991. It was derided then as a fiscal gimmick, because the DOT was having fiscal problems and the Thruway was seen as a cash cow, able, unlike the state's general fund, to take on the road's costs. At about the same time, the operations and maintenance of I-84 was turned over to the Thruway agency, although the authority does not own the highway.

The transfers and maintenance shift were made under former Gov. Mario Cuomo.

For political reasons - key legislators and the governor did not want to alienate voter-rich, swing areas like Westchester County - the highway transfer law prohibited tolls from being imposed on I-84 and I-287.

A year later, state officials shifted another money-losing operation to the Thruway: the state's canal system.

So far, I-84 has cost Thruway users about $140 million since its takeover, while I-287, also known as the Cross Westchester Expressway, has cost about $30 million, officials said.

The canal has been the major expense of these new outside entities. Since its transfer, Thruway tolls have funded $534 million in operating costs. Canal tolls were imposed on boaters in 1995, but they hardly made a dent in the costs: only $18.2 million in revenues have come from boaters over the past decade.

Last year, Thruway tolls brought in an estimated $437 million.

The costs of taking on these nonmainline expenses have grown over the years, and critics say it's only going to worsen in the decade ahead.

Gov. George E. Pataki and the Legislature could have changed the law that forbids tolls on I-287 and I-84, but never considered doing so, legislators and Thruway officials said.

Putting tolls on the two highways or moving them or the canal system out of Thruway is not on the horizon, said Sen. Thomas Libous, Senate Transportation Committee chairman. In part, it would make too big a hit on the state's general fund, he said.

"Is it right? Probably not," the Binghamton Republican said. "But we're not in a position at this time to make any changes."

The cost shift doesn't sit well with the American Automobile Association, which opposed the highway and canal transfers more than a decade ago.

"The state unloaded other transportation requirements on the Thruway and it's as simple as that," said Wally Smith of AAA of Western and Central New York.


Canal revenue an issue

But don't look for AAA to call for tolls on I-84 or I-287; it doesn't back tolls imposed on existing highways, and its downstate members wouldn't be happy, either.

The canal system, where boaters can buy seasonal passes for as little as $25, is another matter for AAA.

"We should be re-examining the extent to which drivers are required to underwrite canal operations," said John Corlett, an AAA lobbyist.

Thruway officials, after listening to a chorus of canal complaints in recent public hearings in Buffalo and elsewhere over its toll hike plan, said last week they will examine the canal revenue issue, though they've committed to nothing.

The trucking industry has been most vocal.

Dale Nason, who owns a Springville trucking company, paid $8,000 in Thruway tolls last year. He said the toll hike plan will cost his firm - unless he pulls his trucks off the Thruway - another $4,400 a year in tolls.

"How'd you like to be the guy in Grand Island? He doesn't like paying the toll anyway going from Grand Island to Buffalo, and now he's paying not just to go across the bridge but to operate 84 and 287 and the canal system," Nason said.

Trucking interests are gun-shy about proposing tolls on roads like I-84 and I-287 for fear that years ahead it could lead state officials to look at placing tolls on other highways. In the end, critics said I-84, I-287 and the canal system turn upside down the theory of a user fee system.

"If you think about tolls, they are the purest form of user fees. They're like stamps. You buy a stamp and your mail gets delivered. Nobody is going to buy a stamp to pay for the National Park Service," said William Joyce, president of the New York State Motor Truck Association.

(from the 04/18 edition of the Buffalo News)

[NoCtUrNaL]

SIGN THE DUDE'S PETITION...can't hurt.

[hacktivist]

I have signed the petition; but that's like spitting on a fire to put it out.

What we need is to ask people like Sam Hoyt WHY are things this way? Don't our elected reps drive around? Or are they so rich that they fly from place to place? Don't they see that the tolls are taking a toll (no pun intended) on this region? Even in Rochester you have tolls on the little sections of the highway.

[Son of Liberty]

OK, then let's demonstrate the tolls by organizing a mass traffic jam at the Williamsville or Breckenridge toll.

Hell they can't arrest 200 people, can they? But officer, my car won't start!

[Son of Liberty]

Originally posted by hacktivist
What we need is to ask people like Sam Hoyt

Sam Hoyt is absolutely worthless! He's arrogant and condescending (sp?) whenever I have had any encounters with him.

[NoCtUrNaL]

Originally posted by Son of Liberty
OK, then let's demonstrate the tolls by organizing a mass traffic jam at the Williamsville or Breckenridge toll.

Hell they can't arrest 200 people, can they? But officer, my car won't start!

If you have time to waste and you want to demonstrate against tolls...don't use toll roads.

[moonshine]

If you have time to waste and you want to demonstrate against tolls...don't use toll roads.

Spoken like a true Rt. 5 professional

[Son of Liberty]

Originally posted by NoCtUrNaL
If you have time to waste and you want to demonstrate against tolls...don't use toll roads.

That works too!

[Boost Buffalo]

Originally posted by Son of Liberty
Sam Hoyt is absolutely worthless! He's arrogant and condescending

and those are his good points...


anyway, the route that is now known as I 190 Niagara section has had a toll attached to it for almost 200 years, as shown in this image:



wow, thats a big image

[ccube]

To respond to NightOwl's intro. quote: If our great state thruway system is really so great and needs the funding to remain truly great..................then why all that jazz at the start of the project that tolls would be temporary!!

[Linda_D]

Originally posted by ccube
To respond to NightOwl's intro. quote: If our great state thruway system is really so great and needs the funding to remain truly great..................then why all that jazz at the start of the project that tolls would be temporary!!

I think that the original toll proposal back in the 1950s was for the route of the Thruway from the PA state line (Ripley) to the MA state line just beyond Albany ... then the Thruway was expanded to include I-87 going south into NYC ... then the I-190 was added ... then the canal was added ... I'm not sure if the TA also takes care of/provides fund for the other interstates (I-290, I-390, I-490, etc) as well as I-87 (north of Albany), I-81, I-86, I-88, etc.

In other words, we still have tolls because the Thruway Authority is just not taking care of the original Thruway, but other highways, and more recently, the Erie Canal, as well.

Besides, keeping or raising tolls, which are "user fees" and not "taxes", is a lot easier than raising other taxes -- and since many people seldom use the Thruway, there's less general opposition.

[ccube]

Thanks Linda................you have a wealth of background info. I'd be interested in knowing the percentage of toll income which goes to pay for toll collector salaries and benefits and booths and for the authority commissioner/supervisors. In other words, what percentage of toll income really goes for repairs?

[Son of Liberty]

Originally posted by Linda_D
Besides, keeping or raising tolls, which are "user fees" and not "taxes", is a lot easier than raising other taxes -- and since many people seldom use the Thruway, there's less general opposition.

But why should Buffalo commuters have to get zapped everyday to work? The toll barriers should be moved away west and east from Lackawanna and Williamsville respectively and Brekenridge and Ogden removed entirely...least we not forget Grand Island. Just in this area alone that's FIVE tolls stations!

User fees my arse, we're WAAAAAY overtaxed!