{"id":4045,"date":"2008-12-04T13:52:21","date_gmt":"2008-12-04T18:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/?p=4045"},"modified":"2008-12-04T13:52:21","modified_gmt":"2008-12-04T18:52:21","slug":"just_out_of_curiosity-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/12\/just_out_of_curiosity-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Just Out Of Curiosity . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>. . . why does it cost <a href=\"http:\/\/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com\/2008\/12\/04\/ravitch-unveils-mta-rescue-plan\/\">$400 million a year to administer tolls<\/a>? That seems high or, at the very least, slightly inefficient:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>A state commission led by Richard Ravitch, a former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, presented a wide-ranging rescue plan on Thursday for the region&#8217;s subways, buses and commuter railroads that includes a new &#8220;mobility tax&#8221; on corporate payrolls in the region; tolls on the free East River and Harlem River bridges; a much smaller fare and toll increase than the cash-strapped authority has threatened; few service reductions; and improvements in bus service. <\/p>\n<p>The plan &#8212; presented in a 19-page report &#8212; would permit automatic, inflation-adjusted fare and toll increases every two years without public hearings, ending what Mr. Ravitch called a cyclical &#8220;political circus.&#8221; The plan would allow for a state takeover of the city-owned Harlem River and East River bridges, which have historically been free to drivers. The new tolls would be collected electronically, without toll booths. <\/p>\n<p>The regional mobility tax &#8212; 33 cents on every $100 of payroll &#8212; would provide $1.5 billion a year, and the tolls would produce $600 million in net revenue a year ($1 billion a year in gross revenue minus expenses), Mr. Ravitch said. The new revenue streams would help finance borrowing for a $30 billion-to-$35 billion M.T.A. capital plan for 2010 to 2014 that would help stimulate the economy while maintaining vital infrastructure.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>. . . why does it cost $400 million a year to administer tolls? That seems high or, at the very least, slightly inefficient: A state commission led by Richard Ravitch, a former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, presented a wide-ranging rescue plan on Thursday for the region&#8217;s subways, buses and commuter railroads that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture_infrastructure","category-follow_the_money"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4046,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4045\/revisions\/4046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}