This Weekend, NYC’s Traffic Dysfunction Gets Worse

In case you missed it, Crain’s ran a good piece today wherein “Gridlock” Sam Schwartz explained one of the less-publicized effects of the MTA fare and toll hikes slated to take effect this weekend. NYC’s already-dysfunctional road pricing system is about to make even less sense.

With tolls on the MTA’s East River crossings going up in each direction, the incentive for drivers to take the free Queensboro, Williamsburg, Manhattan, and Brooklyn Bridges is about to intensify. Schwartz told Crain’s to expect a lot more toll-shopping drivers on streets that are already choked by traffic:

“Today I would estimate 50,000 cars, trucks and buses [crossing the free bridges]. On Monday, I’m estimating 60,000—another 10,000 will switch, and only aggravate the situation at the free bridges,” Mr. Schwartz said. “They vote not with their feet, they vote with their tires.”

“What we have is a bridge like the Ed Koch-Queensboro Bridge sandwiched between two toll crossings—the Queens Midtown Tunnel and the Triborough Bridge,” he said. “And every time there’s a toll increase, more and more drivers hop off the Long Island Expressway at Van Dam Street to avoid going straight ahead to the Queens Midtown Tunnel, and then they just saturate the streets of Sunnyside and Long Island City, snaking their way to the lower level or the upper level of the Queensboro Bridge.”

To add to the Queensboro Bridge example, in addition to the western Queens neighborhoods that have to put up with all the extra congestion, exhaust, and honking on their streets, bus riders will get the short end of the stick. Every day 16,000 bus passengers ride over the Queensboro Bridge. Their trips are going to get more sluggish and unreliable after this weekend.

Until the governor and other electeds step in to fix NYC’s broken road pricing system, the dysfunction will only get worse.