It's almost like state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. is trying to piss people off. Less than a year after he helped kill the plan for East River bridge tolls and claimed the idea was "fundamentally wrong," the Democratic majority leader says he would like to revive East River Bridge tolls as a way to generate revenue for the cash-strapped MTA.
Espada—who with the help of state Senators Carl Kruger and Ruben Diaz Sr. derailed East River bridge tolls by calling the fees unfair to middle-class drivers—says he's a now big supporter of the plan due to the MTA's "incredible financial burden." He told the Times: "[MTA Chair] Jay Walder's got a vision, a long term vision for the M.T.A., and we have to give him the resources...The free student MetroCards are clearly threatened by the budget. We can't just talk about the need to restore that service. We have to actually come up with the money."
Espada—who represents the Bronx but lives in Westchester and is under investigation—has proposed $2 tolls on the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg and Queensboro bridges. He wants to use revenue, which he estimates as $525 million annually, to preserve free student MetroCards while directing excess cash to MTA operating costs. East River bridge tolls were initially part of Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan, but although they outlived the congestion pricing plan, they didn't win enough support to make it out Albany.
