It may sound like the oldest joke in the book, but the city wants to sell the Brooklyn Bridge.
Really.
Mayor Bloomberg disclosed this week that he’s considering a plan to raise hundreds of millions of dollars starting in 2005 by imposing tolls on the free East River bridges.
What the mayor didn’t say was that the city might end up unloading the bridges – the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg and Queensboro – to the MTA’s Bridges and Tunnels division, which already operates all the other interborough toll crossings.
“You could say the city would be selling the Brooklyn Bridge – and all the other bridges,” said one source.
Under one possible scenario, the city would lease the Brooklyn Bridge and others to the MTA for a nominal yearly fee. The MTA division, formerly known as the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, would then run all of the crossings.
That could ease the burden of the city, which currently manages the four bridges, and has responsibility for installing and operating the tolls to Bridges and Tunnels, a division of the state-controlled Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
The MTA and the city could share the hefty new toll revenues under one possible plan.
Deputy Mayor Marc Shaw said it’s premature to talk about tolls and bridge leases.
“All that’s being raised at this point are regional transportation issues and how to pay for them,” he said.
“This is a discussion the administration wants to have with the MTA.”
The idea of charging motorists to cross the Brooklyn and other free bridges has been around for years – and gone nowhere.
But the city’s desperate need for a future revenue stream – it faces a nearly $5 billion deficit – has given it new life. The E-ZPass electronic toll-collection system provides the technological incentive.
Shaw, who served as the MTA’s executive director until this year, said “consolidation savings” are a good reason for a single agency to handle all E-ZPass transactions.
On his weekly radio show yesterday, Bloomberg expressed little sympathy for individual motorists who insist on an easy commute into Manhattan.
“In the end, we all have to take mass transit,” he said.
Both the city and the MTA are looking for new ways to raise cash without borrowing.
The MTA needs billions for its ambitious capital program, including the Second Avenue subway, while the city has just about reached its maximum borrowing capacity.
City officials estimate the new tolls could yield $800 million a year starting in 2006.
Adding tolls won’t be easy. Officials in Brooklyn and Queens are already screaming. The state needs to give its approval.
Engineers would have to figure out where to place toll devices on clogged access roads. And there’d have to be a lengthy environmental-review process.
But if he can pull it off, Bloomberg would go down in the history books as the guy who finally sold – or leased – the Brooklyn Bridge.