Whenever New York State Thruway Authority members deign to schedule and hold a meeting, they’d best heed the message Gov. Cuomo sent this week:
Exhaust all options before hiking tolls!
Last May, the authority first floated a 45 percent toll increase on trucks — then promptly went into “radio silence.”
The idea, however, was almost universally derided as a potentially crippling blow to New York commercial traffic.
The legitimate fear is that trucks will avoid the 570-mile Thruway, and take back roads — adding wear and tear to them as well as costs to goods and services.
But a devastating August report by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli questioned the need for any more Thruway hikes — and focused on the need to cut expenses.
Cuomo made it pretty clear where he stands on Post state columnist Fredric U. Dicker’s radio show Tuesday.
“The last resort is a toll increase,” said the governor. “[The Authority needs] to explore all other options; get creative . . . an increase [is not] the tone we have set.”
Yes, it’s difficult to get the books in order without hiking tolls. So what, said Cuomo: “That’s the mission. That’s the job.”
He noted how critics said — when he entered office — that the state’s then-$10 billion deficit was “impossible to close without a tax increase. I didn’t think so. I don’t think this is impossible, either.”
That’s exactly right.
So, now that the right tone has been set, the authority has to get the other half of the message: transparency.
Since the hike was first proposed, the authority has canceled multiple public meetings and avoided taking a vote.
Two meetings (with vague agendas) were announced this month — notably after Election Day — then abruptly canceled.
One doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to think a bait-and-switch was afoot: meetings moved around and the agenda kept under wraps — perhaps in the hopes hardly anybody would show up?
So a toll hike gets passed in secret?
That’s completely unacceptable.
With the governor on record saying that that’s not what he wants, authority members need to get cracking.
Call a meeting and start explaining how it will get its finances in order — without a toll hike.