New Span Study Takes Toll

By JOYCE SHELBY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, September 30th, 2003

Two groups advocating for mass transit say traffic through Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods and on East River bridges could be reduced by making drivers pay tolls.

But opponents, including Mayor Bloomberg, say the bridges should remain free.

The advocates, Transportation Alternatives and the Straphangers Campaign, released a 58-page study showing that tolls on bridges would ease traffic in downtown Brooklyn by 12%, and in Long Island City by 14%.

In addition, the tolls would bring in money for bridge maintenance and repair.

"There's no such thing as a free bridge," said Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign.

The East River spans without tolls - the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg and Queensboro bridges - cost taxpayers $600 million to maintain and operate, and $1.62 billion to rebuild over the last decade, according to the study.

Tolls also would increase use of mass transit, Russianoff said.

Karen Brooks Hopkins, president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, was one of several leaders opposed to tolls.

Fear fees may hurt

"They would serve as a further means of dividing one borough from the next," she said. "For those of us in the cultural world, we want it to be as easy as possible for people to go and come to institutions."

"We are not in another state, we are just in another borough. The tolls would only encourage people to stay in Manhattan, which is the very thing we are trying to change," she said.

During budget talks before the current fiscal year began in July, Bloomberg removed proposals to put tolls on the East River bridges from the discussion.

"There's been no change in the mayor's position," said Bloomberg spokesman Jordan Barowitz.

Borough President Marty Markowitz said bridge tolls would be a "tremendous economic burden on the businesses and residents of Brooklyn, many of whom are forced to drive because they have no other public transportation options."

That is especially the case for the people of southern Brooklyn, said Assemblywoman Adele Cohen (D-Coney Island).

"The subway can be a wonderful thing," she said, "but when we go to places that are hard to reach by subway, it's very difficult. We need to attack our transportation problems in other ways."