I gotta admit, it’s a pretty slick trick:
Staten Islanders could soon be hit with toll hikes whether they’re coming, going, or driving in between, after New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine announced his plan to levy the portion of Route 440 that connects the Outerbridge Crossing and the New Jersey Turnpike.
When the toll goes into effect in 2010, drivers will be charged 35 cents to travel on the roadway, popular with Staten Island shoppers and Jersey Shore-goers.
How many politicians would like to do something like this? Initiate a revenue generating tax that will, for the most part, be collected from people living in a different state! Of the three bridges linking Staten Island to NJ, the Outtie is the only one that forces cars to use a de facto local road to connect to the Turnpike (or vise versa). It’s a short piece of road that locals not heading to Staten Island can bypass, and if they must use 440, well, they can pay discounted tolls that, obviously, will NOT be offered to out-of-state motorists unless they cross the Outtie every day of the week… and can prove it by providing some kind of documentation.
Who am I kidding? Even that scenario is, at best, dubious.
Corzine wanted to also initiate tolls on Routes 78 and 80, but knew that, politically, it would have been impossible. But taxing this little chunk of road would not cause an uproar among his constituents, since most of the motorists taking the hit aren’t Jersey residents.
Personally, this toll will never affect me, because I stopped using the Outerbridge over a decade ago; like the Goethals Bridge, the horrendous backups found on either side of those bridges just ain’t worth the bother. If I need to go to (or through) New Jersey, the Bayonne Bridge is five minutes from my front door, and there usually is nobody using it (it’s always amusing that, no matter where I want to go, neither Mapquest nor GoogleMaps have ever once directed me to the Bayonne as my point of egress from Staten Island. It’s like it isn’t even there).
Still, Corzine’s scheme galls me, and I’m not the only one:
“Well, maybe we should be charging New Jersey drivers on Staten Island,” said a frustrated Borough President James Molinaro.
“I have no problem putting a toll just for out-of-towners,” he said. “That’s fair enough. We get their pollution, we’re getting their traffic, let’s get their money.”
That’s pretty much exactly the logic employed by Corzine.
So LeatherPenguin would like to offer some nuance to Jimmy the Beep’s cunning “payback is a bitch” scheme:
Make the toll New Jersey specific: any vehicle exiting or attempting to enter any of the three Jersey crossings bearing that state’s plates gotta pay up.
Yeah, I know that scenario would never hold up in court, but still….
Let the border war begin!
“Personally, this toll will never affect me, because I stopped using the Outerbridge over a decade ago; like the Goethals Bridge, the horrendous backups found on either side of those bridges just ain’t worth the bother.”
Yep. In fact, when traveling from Brooklyn back to Jersey late at night, it used to be far more advantageous to me to use the Outerbridge because of the insane Goethals backups, even though I reside due north (I gladly paid the tolls because time spent is worth more to me). Nowadays the BQE and the Deeg is actually faster.
We used to dine at an Italian restaurant within spitting distance of the Bayonne, and, again, I always selected another route, because I know these highways and byways like the back of my hand and the time saved is gold to me.
I think it’s about time that all tolls on all roads, bridges, tunnels, etc., are completely eliminated.
In fact, when traveling from Brooklyn back to Jersey late at night, it used to be far more advantageous to me to use the Outerbridge because of the insane Goethals backups, even though I reside due north (I gladly paid the tolls because time spent is worth more to me). Nowadays the BQE and the Deeg is actually faster.
See? Even you Jerset whores turn a blind eye to my buddy, the “allowed to walk across it” Bayonne.
You expect me to park my car in Bayonne and parade over the bridge, like a spazieren up at the Cloisters or something?
I’ve walked EVERYWHERE but I’ve never crossed a Staten Island bridge by foot.
What? I gotta drag you?