Bridges

Now that the Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam county executives have signaled their support for a new Tappan Zee Bridge, the Cuomo administration is again pushing the project forward at a furious pace. So fast, in fact, that it may violate federal rules.

County executives from Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam counties announced their support for Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Tappan Zee Bridge project yesterday, clearing the way for the project to seek federal funding. The executives, who had withheld support until now, received two concessions: A guarantee of rush hour bus lanes on the new bridge, and the creation of a Regional Transit Task Force, which will report back in one year with recommendations for transit connections to the bridge. They also announced the creation of a working group that would focus on project financing and bridge tolls.

Bloomberg reports today that Governor Andrew Cuomo has charged the Thruway Authority with appointing a panel to  "find alternatives, revenue generators and cost reductions that reduce the potential toll increases" on the replacement Tappan Zee Bridge. The Cuomo administration revealed late last week that the superwide, transit-less replacement bridge -- estimated to cost $5.2 billion -- would require nearly tripling current toll rates to cover its costs. Apparently the reaction to news of $14 cash tolls and daily commuter tolls approaching $9 is causing some kind of reappraisal from the governor.

Council Members Brad Lander, Margaret Chin, and Stephen Levin -- along with advocates from Transportation Alternatives -- stood at the Manhattan entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge this morning and put forth a proposal to expand the bridge's increasingly popular and exceedingly cramped bike and pedestrian path.

Well, this explains why the Cuomo administration has been so reluctant to discuss how to pay for the new Tappan Zee Bridge. At a public meeting last night, Secretary to the Governor Larry Schwartz told the crowd that cash tolls would rise to $14 on the replacement bridge, with a slight discount for E-ZPass holders ($13.40) and a deeper discount for regular commuters ($8.40), the Journal News reports.

Even the Cuomo administration's smallest concessions to transit riders on the Tappan Zee Bridge, it seems, are far from guaranteed.

When it comes to building a new Tappan Zee Bridge for drivers, the Cuomo administration says there's no time to waste and only a gold-plated, super-wide span will do. But don't ask them how they plan to pay for it, or how high tolls will be.

Andrew Cuomo's Tappan Zee Bridge does next to nothing for transit riders; the governor is unwilling to spend even $150 million on incremental transit improvements, much less put in the work to design a full transit corridor. But could it also hurt the existing transit system? If Cuomo isn't willing to make drivers pay the full cost of the bridge, it could. Every dollar for the Tappan Zee that doesn't come from tolls is a dollar that Albany won't give the MTA.

The Cuomo administration keeps finding obstacles to Tappan Zee Bridge transit that don't exist. Chief among them is a phony $5 billion price tag, but there are others as well.