STATEN ISLAND, N.Y -- Bridge tolls are killing jobs on Staten Island. They are a plague on commerce here and a persuasive reason for anyone who can afford to leave to do so. The steadily rising tolls imposed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority are doing real damage to Staten Island’s economy.

The tolls are almost completely out of our control. Local politicians have no real leverage on the toll issue, so their public responses — when there has been one — have been mostly verbal.

It can cost $78 to bring a truck across any of the Port Authority bridges to Staten Island. Planned increases will raise the price to $165 by 2015. Meanwhile, the MTA-owned Verrazano-Narrows Bridge already costs truckers up to $100.

Think about that. The bill for those crossings is tacked on to whatever the truck is carrying, putting those goods at a price disadvantage. Why would any freight-handling company in its right mind do business on Staten Island, let alone locate here?

The short answer: They would not.

American President Lines, a world-class Singapore-based shipping company now referred to simply as APL, provides 37 percent of the business at New York Container Terminal, the shipping port on the Mariners Harbor, and Staten Island’s third largest employer. APL recently decided it will not renew its contract to operate at the Staten Island port. Steadily rising bridge tolls figured prominently in the company’s decision.

Jim Devine, who heads New York Container Terminal, says if toll relief is not forthcoming and other shipping lines follow APL, the port facility may well be closed within two years, taking hundreds of millions of dollars in economic commerce with it.

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*LONE VOICES OF OUTRAGE AIMED AT SPARKING ACTION

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Ironically the economic devastation of the tolls is being worked on a rent-paying Port Authority tenant. The agency owns the seaport facility as well as the container ports along Newark Bay — which do not have to contend with similar tolls.

Bridge tolls, as practiced on Staten Island, are abominably shortsighted and ill-conceived public policy.

Tolls have always put Staten Island at an economic disadvantage and have perennially stirred resentment. In the only borough with an admission fee, the very idea of having to unavoidably pay to do business here or return home from another part of the city has long and rightly offended our sense of fairness.

When the toll on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was originally set, in 1965, at 50 cents each way, Staten Islanders were incensed at having no alternative, and demanded a discount. Robert Moses, creator of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority — precursor of today’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), and the power behind creation of the bridge (and innumerable other changes to New York City’s infrastructure) brushed off the idea. He said Staten Islanders were stuck with the tolls because the bond covenants — promises to pay the bankers for the money borrowed to build the bridge — required a toll of at least 50 cents per passenger-car crossing.

The only "discount" available was to take a city bus: The fare at the time was 15 cents. Nowadays some modest discounts are available to Staten Island motorists driving noncommercial vehicles. Today’s cash toll for cars crossing to Staten Island on the V-N Bridge is $13.

Toll hikes on the V-N Bridge and the three Port Authority crossings have become an unwelcome fact of life on Staten Island, and bursts of outrage have accompanied every increase. In 1992, when round-trip toll on the V-N was raised from $5 to $6, local politicians on both sides of the Narrows were up in rhetorical arms.

Sal Albanese, a city councilman from Brooklyn, rallied scores of commuters to take up placards of protest and gather near the bridge. Their chanting ("No more tolls!") and sign-waving ("Keep your hands out of my wallet") drew approving honks from motorists bound for the toll booths and noticeably slowed the commute. The fervor lasted for an hour.

At about the same time, Staten Island Borough President Guy V. Molinari announced what the Staten Island Advance reported would be "a full-scale attack" against the toll hike. Molinari noted the bridge’s owner — by then it was the MTA — used toll money to subsidize operations and improvements of other mass-transit operations under its bureaucratic umbrella.

"To me, this is outrageous!" Molinari thundered.

It should be noted that Albanese was, at the time of the protests, challenging Molinari’s daughter, Susan, for her seat in Congress.

The MTA and the Port Authority do hold public hearings before tolls are increased, but they tend to be pro forma affairs intended to fulfill the letter of the law requiring such hearings. They are opportunities for the fleeced to vent their frustration. The hearings tend to be sparsely attended because they clearly do not sway the agencies’ intentions. By the time hearings are scheduled, the increases are a done deal.

Little wonder, then, that the anti-toll fire and brimstone once shown by local elected officials has dampened to an air of resignation. On August 18, Borough President James P. Molinaro said simply that Port Authority bridge toll increases were inevitable. The only question was how steep the increase would be. Two days later, the round-trip cash toll at the Bayonne, Goethals and Outerbridge Crossing went up $2.50 — to $12.

Hoping to block or reverse the new tolls, the American Automobile Association sued the Port Authority, claiming the agency illegally uses the bridge revenue for projects, such as the meandering effort -- now more than 10 years old -- to rebuild the World Trade Center site, that do not bear on transportation.

Staten Island Congressman Michael Grimm said he would file a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the AAA contention. "I will not stand by and allow residents of Staten Island to be used as the bailout for the Port Authority’s debt, mismanagement and overspending," Grimm said.

That is more easily said than done. The scope of whatever debt, mismanagement and overspending there may be is difficult to gauge, because the P.A. doesn’t have to open its books to public scrutiny.

To get the governors of New York and New Jersey to sign off on the toll increases, the bi-state agency had to agree to an audit of its spending practices, apparently with an eye toward identifying possible ways to save money. Presumably the largely autonomous agency can choose the auditor.

State-chartered authorities like the PA, the MTA, and numerous others, enjoy considerable independence. They were carefully designed to shield politicians from direct accountability for rising toll exactions and whatever fiascos the various agencies may become party to.

It is that all but unbridled autonomy that allows these so-called "public benefit" agencies to make up policies, fiscal and otherwise, as they go along, without much regard for the effects of their actions.

As nearly as we have been able to determine, at no time did any policy maker involved in the recent Port Authority toll-increase process ask what effect the increases would have on the regional economy, let alone consult with the MTA about its plans. And vice versa.

The authorities seem prone to "mission creep" -- their involvements grow ever wider and they tend to regard toll booths as limitless cash machines which can be ratcheted up (never down) whenever their schemes call for more money, without regard for the economic consequences.

Individuals in our society must, of course, accept a fair share of public burdens, and it is their right to seek relief when that share seems unfair. That tenet presumes the system is itself fair and will honorably respond to requests to redress grievances.

The authorities operate under a system that can make no such claim. The game is rigged in their favor.

Because their leaders are not publicly elected and are shielded from direct accountability, the authorities are a power apart from our representative form of government. Until that changes, the oblivious and high-handed fleecing can be expected to continue.