Another quarter of a million dollars has been committed to the construction of the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement, but the seeming million-dollar question of how much the toll on the new bridge will cost remains unanswered.
The state Public Authorities Control Board voted to approve $256 million in low-interest loans at its July 16 meeting, yet the majority of financing remains elusive for the $3.9 billion, twin-span bridge. The state received a $1.6 billion loan from the U.S. Department of Transportation, but local business groups fear the toll could be triple the $5 amount on the current Tappan Zee because tolls remain the sole revenue stream to pay off the construction debt.
A Toll and Financing Task Force was announced by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, two years ago, but to date no one has been appointed to the group. The administration has kept discussions about potential toll ramifications under wraps, with the discussion at the control board meeting the first public comment on the matter by members of a state agency.
“If we don”™t have a complete picture of what the permanent financing is, it would be very difficult if not impossible to vote in favor of the next one,” state Sen. John A. DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, a board member, said at the meeting.
DeFrancisco was alluding to another $256 million in loans that would represent the second half of a total $511 million authorized by the state Environmental Facilities Corp. in June. That amount, taken from a clean water fund, was cut in half by the control board amid a backlash from environmental groups and local officials who called the loans a misuse of money intended for water improvement and sewage infrastructure projects.
According to budget projections for the state Thruway Authority, which will own and maintain the new bridge, $647 million in toll revenue is expected this year and that figure must grow to $952 million in 2017 to meet the needs of the agency. A large portion of those needs are the costs of the new bridge.
Rockland County Executive Ed Day, a Republican, has said inflating the toll could discourage shoppers from crossing the bridge into Rockland, opting for destinations such as Yonkers”™ Ridge Hill over the Palisades Mall. The Thruway Authority saw its bond rating reduced last year by Moody”™s Investors Service, which said the authority might not raise its tolls quickly enough to pay for the replacement bridge. No toll increases will take hold this year and there are none announced for 2015.
The Thruway Authority said it would seek the balance of the $511 million next year. Thomas J. Madison, the authority”™s executive director, said there were other projects that would need to be financed outside of the Tappan Zee replacement. Tolls would be the main source to fund all of the authority”™s construction needs.
“Going forward, in addition to the bridge and the revenue needs there ”¦ it”™s fair to say there will be toll adjustments for the rest of the system as well,” he said.
Yet even the $256 million already approved may face legal challenges from environmentalists or see the brakes applied by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A regional director for the agency said in a letter earlier this year that the loan was an “unconventional” use of the clean water fund.
Paul Gallay, president of the environmental group Riverkeeper, said litigation seemed increasingly inevitable. He said there had been a unified front of municipal groups, legislators and others opposing the loans.
“This unprecedented alliance for good governance warned Senate and Assembly power brokers: ”˜This is bad business. Don”™t go along with it,”™” he said. “But they did just that, with barely a whisper of protest.”
Pro-business groups praised the loan, saying it would help keep the cost of the toll down. The Cuomo administration said the funds were not being used simply for bridge construction but for environmental projects such as protecting oyster beds in the Hudson River. Ross J. Pepe, president of the Construction Industry Council of Westchester & Hudson Valley Inc., said anyone opposed to the loans was “fooling themselves and short-changing the public.”
“Let”™s do the math,” he said in a statement after the loans were first announced. “Higher environmental protection costs means higher tolls on the bridge. Lower loan financing costs means lower tolls on the bridge.”
Marcia Bystryn, president of The New York League of Conservation Voters, said in a statement the project had “nothing to do with drinking water or wastewater systems.”
“It is simply not true to say that the $255 million loan is ”˜environmental”™ funding, when the vast majority of that sum is for bridge construction and related work,” she said.
