Group to Promote Revised Plan for Tolls on East River Bridges

There could be no more talk, transit advocates reasoned, of “congestion pricing,” a phrase Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg often used before his sweeping plan to overhaul New York City’s bridge tolling system was vanquished in 2008, and treated as political arsenic ever since.

Then, with a clean slate, supporters could move on to the hard part: sculpting a proposal that might succeed where the mayor failed.

And so, more than five years after Mr. Bloomberg’s plan died in Albany, a cadre of the city’s transit minds has primed a successor, fine-tuning a pricing model that might be more palatable to residents outside Manhattan, meeting quietly with former opponents and preparing to take its case early next year to a public that has grown accustomed to free, if traffic-choked, rides over the East River.

Political obstacles abound, including securing the support of the State Legislature. But in what the plan’s supporters have billed as the most significant change of heart so far, Councilman Mark Weprin, an outspoken critic of the old proposal, said in an interview last week that he was receptive to this reimagined version.

“I’d like to have a chance to talk to them again,” he said of his constituents, “and say this makes a lot more sense.” (Mr. Weprin, a Queens Democrat, is running for City Council speaker.)

Proponents said the arrangement, devised by Samuel I. Schwartz, a former city traffic commissioner, would increase tolls in areas with high congestion and ample public transportation, and lower or eliminate them in transit-poor pockets, suggesting that Manhattanites would be asked to contribute more than they had under past proposals.

The plan championed by Mr. Bloomberg would have “raised revenue to do a lot of good things,” Mr. Schwartz said. “To be fair was not the fundamental premise.”

Move NY, the group behind the campaign, has billed the new plan as “fair tolling and transportation reinvestment,” adding that its details would not be made final until after a series of public forums next year. It can be distinguished from Mr. Bloomberg’s vision, the group said, in part because its revenues would be used not only to fund the capital program of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority but also to upgrade roads and bridges — a nod to drivers who might be expected to oppose any congestion-based pricing.

While the toll amounts could change, an example on Mr. Schwartz’s website included $5.33 E-ZPass tolls on the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge and the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges — all of which are now free. The one-way rate to cross the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge would decline to $5.66, from $10.66, and tolls on the Robert F. Kennedy, Throgs Neck and Bronx-Whitestone Bridges would be $2.83.

Traffic should be eased, Mr. Schwartz has said, because the adjusted rates would discourage “toll-shopping,” which can currently lead commercial vehicles and private drivers to take circuitous but inexpensive routes through some of the city’s busiest neighborhoods.

Rates could also be adjusted depending on the city’s economic fortunes, Mr. Schwartz said, potentially falling during lean periods.

Move NY estimated that the plan would create 35,000 jobs.

Some city and state lawmakers remain deeply skeptical of adjusting the toll structure. Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, when he was on the Council, voted against Mr. Bloomberg’s plan in 2008. He said during a Democratic primary debate this year that he opposed tolling the East River bridges.

A spokeswoman for Mr. de Blasio said he had been briefed on the new proposal, but she declined further comment.

Then there is Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who drew the ire of transportation advocates earlier this month after vetoing legislation intended to discourage Albany from redirecting dedicated transit funds. His office did not respond to requests for comment on the proposal.

Though the transportation authority recently announced that it would increase fares and tolls by less than expected in 2015 and 2017, citing an improved financial position, securing long-term revenue sources remains a challenge.

Elliot G. Sander, the chairman of the Regional Plan Association and a former chief executive of the transportation authority, said Mr. Schwartz’s plan presented the best option to finance the agency’s capital program for 2015 to 2019.

“If people oppose this,” he said, “there is an obligation for them to come up with their alternative for how we fund the region’s subways, commuter rail and bus system.”

Adam Lisberg, the chief spokesman for the transportation authority, said the agency was “always happy to talk with anyone with ideas about how to fund the M.T.A.’s capital plan,” but added that overhauling the toll policy was up to the Legislature and other political leadership.

Among former critics of ideas to toll the East River bridges, reactions to this one have been mixed. Richard L. Brodsky, a former Democratic assemblyman and a senior fellow at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, said Mr. Schwartz’s plan was “a fundamentally regressive tax,” even if equity problems among the boroughs were “addressed to an extent,” at least compared with the 2008 plan.

“It will modify the behavior of the guy driving the ’97 Chevy,” Mr. Brodsky said, “but will do nothing to modify the behavior of the guy driving the 2013 Mercedes.”

Rory I. Lancman, a former Queens assemblyman who recently won election to the Council, called the proposed tolling change “a peculiar windmill that transit advocates won’t stop tilting at.”

“If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s congestion pricing,” he said.

But another former opponent, John Corlett, the legislative committee chairman for AAA New York, said the group had found more to admire in Mr. Schwartz’s proposal. “This plan has definitive benefits for drivers: toll reductions in the outer boroughs and improvements in the roads that go beyond state of good repair, ” he said.

Mr. Schwartz suggested that such measures should free his plan from the shadow of Mr. Bloomberg’s.

“By no means is this congestion pricing,” he said. “It’s more of a master plan for New York that has some elements of that.”READ MORE