Bridge tolls are back from the dead.
Gov. Paterson is again behind a plan that would toll 13 now-free East and Harlem river bridges at the current cost of a transit ride for all drivers — about $2 — except those crossing the spans for medical purposes or certain business-related reasons, officials said. Also, all non-Manhattan residents who rent out spaces in parking garages would see an increase in parking taxes up to 10 percent. There would also be a 50-cent “dropoff” surcharge on every yellow-taxi ride, according to former MTA chief Richard Ravitch, the plan’s author.
The taxi and parking taxes would generate about $150 million a year for the transit agency facing a $1.2 billion deficit. The tolls would bring in around $850 million a year.
The proposal is just the latest in a string of attempts to get Senate Democrats to agree to an MTA rescue plan that would stave off crippling fare hikes and service cuts. The Democrats hold a one-vote majority in the Senate, and one party member indicated he wouldn’t vote for the hikes.
“Sounds to me like the plans of a lunatic,” said Sen. Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn), who helped kill the first toll proposal.
Kruger accused Paterson of “some type of memory failure” for including tolls in the proposal. Kruger dismissed certain elements of the plan, like the medical exemption, as “ridiculous.”
“Do I now have to bring a note from the doctor and bring it to Richard Ravitch?” Kruger said. “It’s a flight of mental instability and it sounds like the death rattle of a dying idea.”
It’s still unclear if the medical exemption will apply to all doctors’ appointments or only to emergencies, and how that would be enforced, a state official said.
The parking-tax increase would be on top of the existing 18.375 percent tax charged anyone who rents a monthly space in a Manhattan parking garage.
Only Manhattan residents who use a rented space for residential purposes would be exempt. They would continue to pay only a 10.375 percent tax.
Paterson’s office, in a statement, called on lawmakers to pass the plan “with all deliberate speed.”
“Governor Paterson continues to support the Ravitch Commission and their plan to stabilize the MTA’s finances,” the statement said. “The commission continues to put forward options that have the support of the business community, labor, commuters and environmental groups.”
If passed, the tolls would not go into effect for 18 months.