rise up Rochester

Flickr user: Leo Reynolds

I’m putting this post under the ‘Fun’ category because it made me laugh when I read the statement from the CFO of the Thruway Authority. Read this short article that appeared in the Democrat and Chronice (and other NYS newspapers) recently:

Traffic drops by 2 million on Thruway; agency forced to cut costs

Joseph Spector • Albany bureau • August 27, 2008

ALBANY — High gasoline prices and a sluggish economy led to nearly 2 million fewer cars and trucks on the state Thruway in June and July compared with the same period in 2007, state records show.

“This is truly unique,” said John Bryan, the authority’s chief financial officer. “We’ve always considered ourselves sort of recession-proof.”

The decline has left the Thruway Authority scurrying to reduce expenses to close an unanticipated $25 million to $30 million budget gap at year’s end.

High gas prices also led to a whopping 22 percent drop in boating on the Erie Canal this year compared with 2007. The authority, which also runs the 524-mile canal system, said the number of boats through the canal locks fell by more than 17,000 through July compared with the same period last year.

Tolls collected on the canal have dropped from $245,000 to $105,997 over the past three years.

JSPECTOR@Gannett.com

Flickr user: xac

It really amazes me the ignorance of the Thruway Authority to think that they could raise tolls in a declining economy and think that there wouldn’t be an effect. Many people are trying to downplay the effect of the increased tolls. Let’s illustrate this by looking how the debate plays out in the comments:

leavingroch said:

“We’ve always considered ourselves sort of recession-proof.” IS that his way of saying we can raise the price to anything you HAVE TO PAY… big surprise you raise the tolls and people stopped using the thruway… I am one of them, I found another way to get where I am going, didn’t cost me more in time and it saved me the tolls, and I know trucks are doing it… see raise prices, usage drops, make less money… lower prices, usage goes up, more money…. sorta like jobs… raise taxes, less jobs, less money…. lower taxes, more jobs, more money….. NY will never get it.

I agree with this commenter that “NY will never get it”. We have some of the highest taxes already and our state government seems content to incrementally push up the tax load. Tolls on highways are the most despicable and economically ludicrous type of taxation because it only serves to reduce trade by making it more costly. If you want to help the economy, why would you tax the method by which most of our goods are delivered to market? It really doesn’t make any sense to me.

mrrochester’s comment has quite a bit of double-think in it, but it still raises some good points:

I hope the authority recognizes that if they drop the price of tolls, MORE people will use the thruway. If the tolls drop based on gas price increases, it still makes sense to use the thruway. Im not very old, but I heard back in the day, Dewey promised the thruway would be free to travel by now. I dont mind paying a small toll to travel, whats 50 cents or a dollar?

Florida is my favorite, to travel over the bridge to St Petersburg you have to pay $1. When traveling to Tampa I recommend taking it. Because of that $1 toll, there are usually 3 people on the bridge and the panorama is beautiful.

Most importantly, people like me are too young to remember that the tolls for the Thruway were supposed to be temporary, but have become a perfect example of how once a tax is in place, they never go away. Other than that, I can’t quite understand what this person’s argument is. Do you love tolls, mrrochester, or do you despise them? Would it be good if they raised tolls more on the Thruway so that you could have a better view of the countryside? Perhaps a toll on the 490 would be great too! That way you could stop on the Freddy-Sue bride and snap some pics of downtown. Ridiculous!

speedmaster reiterated the point that the tolls were supposed to be gone by now:

Well … since the tolls are just used to maintain the thruway, and it’s being used less, this should be fine, right?

As an aside, weren’t we told that the Thruway tolls would go away once it was paid for, maybe 20+ years ago?!

I couldn’t disagree more with JLB12′s assertion:

I think the increase in thruway tolls is a minor factor in the decreased use of the thruway. The real factor is definately gas prices. People are traveling less. When I lived in Buffalo, I took the thruway to the I-81 exit to visit my parents. The toll was around $4.30 and I would use about $25 worth of gas to get to my destination. Now the same travel would cost $5.60 in tolls and $53 in gas. People aren’t taking the trips they normally would in the summer because of the cost of gas. Believe me the $1.30 in extra tolls is incidental compared to the extra $28 in gas it costs me to see my family. I am not in favor of the toll increases, but it isn’t the biggest reason people are using the Thruway less.

This person is not in any place to make a comment like this based on their own experience with the tolls because every vehicle is taxed differently and everyone travels different amounts each year.

fortyknot could attest to this:

Tolls on my van has increased 300% in the last 3yrs because of the new tolls based on the height of the van. I have decided to take alternate routes even if it does take a little longer.

5 stars for yank54′s comment:

when I go to Buffalo or Syracuse I never use the Thruway, taking the back roads are more enjoyable, you travel through small towns and the trees and view are much better. Paying for the use of the Thurway to me is not worth it, plus everytime you are on it there is construction going on and there are delays.

I couldn’t agree more. The Thruway is ugly as heck and it is so boring to drive on it almost puts me to sleep. The curves are designed to go at least 100 because at the time they figured in the future the speed limits would be that high, but since we don’t get to go that fast (even though most of our cars are capable of it) it just is too boring to drive on. Sigh.

One final comment from billh42:

“Tolls collected on the canal have dropped from $245,000 to $105,997 over the past three years”.

Tolls on the canal were waived during the 2006 and 2007 season to encourage boaters to use the canal. So how could tolls have “dropped” over three years when two of those years were intentionally 0?
Don’t you guys ever check these stories or do you just reprint whatever is in the press release?

HAHAHA, yep. This is the kind of story that passes as ‘journalism’ these days. What a shame.

On a side note, I find the comments about the canal interesting because I swear I saw a story on one of the local TV networks talking about how canal traffic is triple what it was last year. Perhaps that last comment can explain how this happened.