Rockland Daily Staff

Rockland County Executive Ed Day sent a letter earlier today with a message to the MTA regarding advancing the Traffic Mobility Review Board's (TMRB's) congestion pricing toll structure recommendations.

"I write today to urge you to vote no to advancing the Traffic Mobility Review Board's (TMRB's) Congestion Pricing Toll Structure Recommendations," the county executive writes. "The TMRB Recommendation Report is flawed because it did not analyze the impact of credits for any of the tolled bridge crossings, as was required in the State legislation that governs the congestion pricing program... The TMRB never analyzed toll credits for any of the three tolled bridge crossings into Manhattan (Henry Hudson, RFK, and George Washington bridges). In fact, it appears that any credit for bridge tolls into Manhattan had already been eliminated from consideration before the TMRB ever met.   

"The MTA Board should not vote to begin the rate-making process or present a proposed toll schedule for public review until the legally required analysis of credits for the tolled bridges into Manhattan is completed.

 

Day also requests that the MTA (and TBTA) Board consider an exemption from the CBD toll for Rockland County residents, given that the profitability indicator used to determine the viability of cash flow from a project reflects that Rockland County's ratio of benefits to costs (BCR) associated with payments to the MTA versus service/funding received from the MTA has ranged between 35% and 62% over the past 25 years. In business, anything less than 100% BCR means the project's costs outweigh the benefits and should not even be considered.    

"None of you would invest in a venture with that kind of return, yet Rockland County is forced to, year after year," Day says. "Taxation without representation, if you will - especially with the quarter vote we have on this Board. No other member of the MTA has a Benefit-Cost Ratio less than 100%...

"Rockland County's overpayments to the MTA for the past 35 years have subsidized MTA long enough," Day concludes.