BENSONHURST'S PREMIER NEWS BLOG

Source: Norbert Nagel via Wikimedia Commons

Witnesses driving across the Verrazano Bridge said they saw a man jump from the right lane of the Staten Island-bound upper level before 4 p.m. yesterday. The search for the man took several hours and it was unclear if there had actually been a jumper. However, MTA officials did confirm later in the day that there was indeed a jumper, according to SI Live.

The male driver’s identity has not been revealed at this time.

Prior to the first incident to happen this year, there have been five suicides on the bridge since December of 2011, including thwarted several attempts.

The MTA has attempted to stop the increase of suicides on the bridge by putting up suicide prevention  signs which read “Life is Worth Living,” along with contact numbers for suicide prevention agencies.

Emergency response officials searched the waters for several hours but no body has been found yet.

Source: Glabb via Wikimedia Commons

A four-car-collision left nine injured and one person in critical condition on the Verrazano Bridge Monday afternoon.

The cars were traveling on the Brooklyn-bound upper level a bit before 2 p.m., according to DNA info.com.

The collision closed two lanes of traffic. They reopened an hour and a half later.

Three of the injured had minor injuries and five of the victims had serious injuries. One person had to be pulled form the wreckage. They were all taken to Staten Island University Hospital North and Richmond University Medical Center.

Source: Antonio Martínez López / Flickr

Whether by car, bus or subway, getting around in New York City is about to become a little more expensive.

The MTA Board approved the agency’s 2013 budget this morning, which included a set of mass transit, bridge and toll hikes across the metropolitan region.

Find out what the new rates are, and how the MTA’s budget is looking overall.

Source: wallyg via Flickr

Tomorrow, the board of the MTA will cast their votes on raising tolls on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to a whopping $15 – and local pols are fuming.

State Senator Marty Golden, Congressman Michael Grimm and Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis issued a joint statement to the board and its chairman, Joe Lhota, urging them to kill the proposal and grant Brooklynites and Staten Islanders a measure of economic relief.

The statement follows a letter sent by the trio on December 13. In it, they wrote:

This proposal will hit the pockets of all New Yorkers who traverse the Verrazano Bridge for the purposes of work, shopping, medical care, family visits, and more. It is just unacceptable that the most expensive bridge in the world, already at $13, has the potential to become more expensive.

… In these difficult economic times, the last thing New Yorkers need is the burden of additional travel expenses. The proposal now before the MTA will further strain the budgets of millions of New York’s families and cause a loss of revenue for countless businesses. This proposal is not only misguided, it is something New Yorkers are not willing to accept.

The current proposal calls for raising the toll $2, from $13 to $15. The increase would be $1.06 for those with E-Z Pass.

The three Republican legislators are not alone. Last month, Democratic Councilman Vincent Gentile stood before the board at its November 28 hearing and blasted the plan. He also demanded that the MTA extend the discount they give to Staten Island residents to Brooklyn residents as well.

Source: Ibagli via Wikimedia Commons

From the offices of the Metropolitan Transit Authority:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) announced Sunday that Tutor Perini has been awarded a five-year, $235.7 million contract to replace the original 1960s upper level roadway of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which, once completed, will include the agency’s first reversible high occupancy vehicle lane.The new reversible lane will connect with State Department of Transportation’s HOV lanes on either side of the bridge, providing a continuous HOV lane from the Staten Island Expressway straight through to the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel for the first time and save time for thousands of daily bus and HOV car commuters.”Completing this last piece of the Staten Island to Manhattan HOV lane across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge will have an enormous beneficial impact on regional mobility,” said MTA Chairman and CEO Joseph Lhota. New York City Transit Staten Island Express buses carry an average 30,000 riders to and from Manhattan each weekday.”This project is a critical part of our strategy to keep the bridge in a state of good repair for the estimated 190,000 motorists who use it daily, and has been carefully planned so it will impact daily traffic as little as possible,” said MTA Bridges and Tunnels President Jim Ferrara.

The bridge’s upper level will remain open to traffic while the new roadway is installed, and the three current lanes of traffic will be maintained during peak morning and afternoon drive times using a movable barrier.

“The upper level roadway is nearing 50 years old and has reached the end of its useful life and must be replaced,” said MTA Bridges and Tunnels Chief Engineer Joe Keane. The current concrete roadway deck will be replaced with a lighter, steel orthotropic deck that will have a significantly improved life span than the original deck system.

In order to verify the performance of the new deck’s design, a full scale prototype underwent several years of rigorous testing and successfully endured more than 5 million cycles of simulated truck traffic loading at Lehigh University’s Advanced Technology for Large Structural Systems (ATLSS) engineering research center.

“The advantages of an orthotropic deck versus a traditional concrete deck are that orthotropic decks are a more durable, lighter and stiffer deck system, improving seismic and wind performance of the bridge,” explained Verrazano-Narrows Facility Engineer David Riggs. “An added benefit is that the deck system is a continuous structure without expansion joints, which tend to leak and accelerate deterioration of the supporting steel below,” Riggs said.

Tutor Perini, which has local offices in New Rochelle, will help create the reversible HOV lane by reconfiguring the median, side barriers and curbs on both sides of the bridge. The contractor has successfully completed several other projects for MTA Bridges and Tunnels, including major roadway deck reconstruction at the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge and Robert F. Kennedy Bridge.

The project will also include a new drainage system, new steel sign structures, new LED lighting on both levels of the bridge, rehabilitation of the finger joints and painting of the support structures. Preparatory work will begin in 2013 and roadway construction in 2014. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2017.

A separate contract will be awarded in 2013 to construct a new ramp on the Brooklyn side of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge that will connect the bridge’s new HOV lane to the New York State Department of Transportation’s Gowanus Expressway HOV lane.

Source: wallyg via Flickr

Councilman Vincent Gentile attended a November 28 toll hearing in Staten Island regarding the proposed MTA Verrazano-Narrows Bridge toll hike.

Gentile put forth a fiery statement opposing the hike. His major point of contention is that the city would not budge in waiving the tolls when Hurricane Sandy relief workers needed to get to and from Staten Island with aid and supplies.

He writes:

Never before has a $13 round-trip toll on a bridge not connected to Manhattan seemed more insanely prohibitive than in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy as first responders and volunteers racing to help realize they can’t afford to make the necessary trips back and forth to transport supplies.

Earlier this month, in a letter to MTA Bridges and Tunnels President Jim Ferrara, I demanded that MTA Bridges and Tunnels immediately suspend tolls on the Verrazano Bridge for relief workers.

He goes on to criticize the MTA for spending their revenue on the LIRR and Metro-North lines.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the MTA must change its funding formula so that more fare and toll revenue goes to city buses and subways, instead of the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North, which serve the suburbs.

Back in June, just days after Governor Cuomo struck a deal with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to give Staten Island residential E-ZPass holders a big toll break, I turned to the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority and demanded: ‘What about Brooklyn?!’

Gentile also hones in on the inequality between Staten Island residents receiving a discount and Brooklyn residents not receiving one to travel the same distances.

Seven days a week my constituents travel across that bridge to and from the College of Staten Island, Wagner College, to see their parents or spouses in nursing homes, or to work or shop. The residents in these zip-codes surrounding the bridge have to pay between $3.84 to $5.28 more than their Staten Island neighbors each time they cross the Verrazano Bridge. At $13 a pop, this is completely unjustifiable not to mention a serious burden on the wallet.

For local people who need to cross the Verrazano Bridge on a daily or frequent basis, the same discount on the bridge should apply as the discount given to Staten Islanders.

He concludes by urging the MTA to stop the proposed toll hike and to finally allow relief workers the benefit of free travel across the bridge.

Gentile is not the only one furious about the MTA’s unwillingness to give Staten Islanders in need and relief volunteers a hand. Brooklyn resident Jason Hernandez, an independent protester, has put out a petition demanding the MTA donate one day of fare collections to Sandy relief. Currently the petition has 50 signatures.

Photo by Richard Resnick

Maybe this ominous photo of the Verrazano Bridge is a response to the proposed toll hike. Maybe it’s just some cool photography. Either way, here’s your creepy midweek photo, just in time for Halloween.

Grimm/Simons courtesy of Facebook

After all of the suicide tragedies that have occurred on the Verrazano in recent times, a story of two officers saving a young life offers a powerful contrast.

On Wednesday night, Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Officers Edward Grimm and Lee Simons responded to a call on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge about a stationary 2012 Honday Pilot on the lower-level.

Officer Grimm, who is no stranger to heroic deeds, approached the car on foot. Because of the tinted windows, Grimm was unable to see what was happening inside and he was cautious to act quickly. Yet, he had on a hunch that something wasn’t right. As he came closer, he heard yelling and the scene became clearer.

A woman was screaming for help because her 8-year-old son had his seat belt wrapped around his throat and was on the verge of strangling himself to death.

“He had a seat belt wrapped around his neck, I would say… eight times,” Grimm said to the Staten Island Advance. “It was like a piece of tape around his neck. You actually saw his skin coming over the belt because it was so tight, and the kid was turning colors. He wasn’t talking.”

Not long after Office Lee Simons, a 9-year veteran, arrived. The men started to work on saving the boy’s life. They realized that the belt had become so tightly wound that they could not get their fingers between the belt and the boy’s neck to free him.

Simons reached into his pocket and pulled out a folding knife. The officers cut the seat belt and the boy started breathing shortly after.

“I was in the right place in the right time,” said a humble Simons. “Anybody in that situation would have done the same thing.”

He was taken by an emergency response team to Lutheran Medical Center, where he made a full recovery.

Though  no one knows the exact circumstances that led to the horrific scene, officers assume the boy may have been playing around in the car when the belt became too tight.

“This is like lessons for life,” said the boy’s mother after the accident.

Source: Michael LoCascio via Wikimedia Commons

The MTA 2012 Customer Satisfaction Survey was recently released it shows that two-thirds of Verrazano Bridge commuters are unsatisfied with the value for their dollar.

Last year, only 37 percent of commuters responded that the bridge was a good bang for the buck, whereas this year, 35 percent said the value was fair, according to SI Live.

The number has steadily declined and most believe it will drop even more if the $15 toll rate goes into effect.

As for overall satisfaction, the Verrazano-Narrows ranks as nearly the worst. It is in ninth place out of 10 other options. It’s only ahead of the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge.

Image courtesy of Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis and Senator Martin Golden

The MTA is considering a proposal to increase the tolls on New York City’s major bridges and tunnels. This means that the cash tolls for the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge would go from $13 to $15.

Electronic tolls may be bumped up as well, according to the New York Daily News.

The MTA board will vote on a final budget in December, with raised tolls possibly going into effect by March of 2013.

Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis and Senator Martin Golden, along with Congressman Michael Grimm, have come forward to denounce the hikes.

Grimm sent a letter to the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) in which he writes:

Why is the answer always to raise tolls? Every family and business in NYC has had to learn to live within a budget, so why can’t the MTA?  We are sick and tired of NYC’s debt-stricken agencies – whether it being the PA or the MTA – running immediately to the taxpayers for a bailout.  There has to be another solution that doesn’t involve shifting the burden to the taxpayer. I suggest the MTA a serious look at its finances, cut out the waste, and find a creative way to maintain the current level of services without raising fares or the tolls on the Verrazano Bridge.

While Malliotakis and Golden hosted a recent press conference at the Brooklyn entrance of the Verrazano Bridge.

Malliotakis stated that a toll hike would have a devastating impact on local business. She presented a report obtained from Port Authority that backs up her claims.

She said:

The MTA has treated our community as a piggy bank at the expense of our economy for years, and its toll hike plan for bridges and tunnels is yet another example of its indifference to local commuters and job creators,” said Malliotakis. “If you want to know what will happen as a result of further MTA toll hikes, look no further than the NYCT, where businesses have been crippled by the Port Authority’s cash-grabs. By raising bridge and tunnel tolls, the MTA is exporting jobs to neighboring states and unfairly burdening local toll payers. We will not stand idly by as another mismanaged transportation agency attempts to balance its budget on the backs of local businesses and commuters.

Golden agrees and is also concerned with the economic issues associated with raising tolls on major bridges. He states:

Our community relies on the surrounding bridges not only for transportation, but as cornerstones of commerce and job creation. Raising tolls on these structures is bad for businesses, bad for commuters and bad for our economy. In these difficult economic times, the Metropolitan Transit Authority is wrongfully again looking to dig deeper into the pockets of motorists who travel across the five boroughs of our City. Raising tolls on these structures is bad for businesses, bad for commuters and bad for our economy.

According to reports, inbound trucks to New York pay 544 percent in tolls more than trucks using New Jersey’s terminals. This “increases the cost of everything transported into New York, with absolutely no justification or benefit to New Yorkers,” said Kendra Adams, President of the New York State Motor Truck Association.