Talk Bronx New York

For whom the hike tolls: Drivers will have to pay 50 cents more to cross bridges and tunnels

Thank a driver today, straphangers.

More than 800,000 daily drivers have to dig deeper into their pockets and pay higher tolls to subsidize the bus, subway and commuter train system.

Tolls for most of the MTA’s major bridges and tunnels have been hiked 50 cents to $5.50 for those paying cash.

The E-ZPass toll is now $4.57, up from $4.15 for the major crossings: The Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, Throgs Neck Bridge, Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and the Queens Midtown Tunnel.

One-way tolls to use the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge are now $11 cash, up from $10. E-ZPass will set drivers back $9.14, up from $8.30.

“It’s outrageous,” said John Corlett, director of government affairs for Automobile Club of New York.

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Take The Train To The Plane. Plans For LaGuardia Airport Train 

Freight rail lines could be converted into subway lines, new regional train stops could open in the Bronx and a train could take passengers directly to LaGuardia Airport under a 40-year plan proposed by the head of the region’s transit agency.

In a “State of the MTA” speech Monday, Metropolitan Transportation Authority executive director Elliot Sander proposed several long-range projects for the agency that runs the city’s subways, buses and suburban train lines.

The MTA could look to “underutilized or dormant” services like a freight rail line in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn and available land in Rockaway Beach in Queens to extend subway service in decades to come, Sander said.

Sander also said the MTA would explore creating a second AirTrain service to connect LaGuardia Airport to Long Island Rail Road service in Woodside, Queens, as well as light rail service on Staten Island and new Metro-North train stops in the Bronx.

Sander said the MTA would add $30 million worth of promised new service this year, increasing service on 11 subway lines and extending several bus routes.

SOURCE: USAToday.com

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