3:07 pm Sep. 27, 20122
Michael Bloomberg took the Staten Island Ferry today, and soon afterward said that, in a perfect world, people would pay to use cars but not mass transit.
"If you were gonna design, keep in mind, the perfect public transportation system, you would have it be free and you would charge people to use cars, because you want the incentive to get them to do that," he said.
The question of transit, and its cost, arose during a press conference announcing private plans to build the world's tallest Ferris wheel and a new mall on the north shore of Staten Island. Since such a destination might create excess demand for the ferry, which is now free, a reporter asked if the mayor would consider charging a fare to ride it.
"Nobody's looked at that," said Bloomberg. "The ferry has a tradition of being paid for by the taxpayers."
Bloomberg availed himself of two forms of taxpayer-funded transportation to arrive at today's event.
A taxpayer-funded car carried him from a ribbon-cutting in Harlem to the Staten Island Ferry terminal in lower Manhattan, where he boarded a ferry with a handful of reporters.
Upon his arrival in Staten Island, another car awaited, driving him the final two blocks to Richmond County Bank Ballpark, the site of the press conference.
This was not the first time the mayor has called for drivers to pay for the right to use their cars.
Earlier in his mayoral career, Bloomberg tried, and ultimately failed, to push a congestion pricing scheme through Albany that would have imposed tolls on the East River bridges.
This Mayor has got to go. Staten Island drivers pay through the nose for MTA and PATH transit. Anyone notice how high the tolls are on our bridges??? Where does that money go? MTA! It is an insult that we pay $12 to cross the PATH bridges and $13 for the Verrazano. When they were built, we were promised that the tolls would be used ONLY to pay for the bridges. They lied. This Mayor loves to fleece motorists. He is so rich that he doesn't have to worry about tolls. Plus as Mayor he doesn't have to pay them.
@Commuter1971: of course, the free staten island ferry is not used by any driving Staten Islanders nor do they ever use transit elsewhere, the roads are all built for free and of course there would be no problem for these roads to accommodate all the folks taking transit if transit would go away. And of course motorists also pay all the externalities like pollution, etc. Oh these poor motorists ....