The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a notoriously mismanaged and wasteful agency is facing an apocalyptic fiscal crisis despite a $4 billion cash injection as part of the most recent Covid-19 relief package. The cash saves the MTA from making brutal service cuts, but the financial crises still loom. Under this backdrop, the MTA board must […]
FMCSA Proposes to Drop Requirement for Drivers to Report Traffic Citations to Carriers
As part of its effort to remove costly, redundant, and burdensome regulations, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is considering eliminating the requirement that interstate truck drivers annually prepare and submit a list of their traffic violation convictions to their employers. The agency believes the requirement is “largely duplicative” of another provision requiring carriers […]
Verrazzano Narrows Bridge to Begin Bi-directional Tolling
MTA Bridges and Tunnels has advised that beginning on Tuesday, December 1, 2020, at 2 am, tolls will be charged electronically in both directions at the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge. Since 1986, per federal legislation, tolls were only collected Staten Island bound. Now toll amounts will be split and motorists charged in both directions. The MTA […]
New York State Thruway Toll Increase
In December of 2019, the New York State Thruway Authority issued a proposal that would increase toll rates on the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge. The proposal also establishes a 30 percent rate differential for toll by mail rates along the entire Thruway system and a 15 percent rate differential above the New York E-ZPass […]
Tolling Inefficiency
The notion that tolls are somehow a fair, efficient form of taxation is an absurd myth on par with Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster. Before cashless tolling, about 30% of revenue went just to administer and collect the toll. While that number may be a bit lower due to automated cashless tolling, with […]