Buffalo Boy's Blog

The Grand Island tolls and the New York State Thruway Authority have gone too far. They have got to be kidding. $1.00 to drive a car to Grand Island. It was $0.50. It has essentially doubled in two and a half years.

I don't live there anymore but I still need to go there to visit my parents and paying that dollar will be painful. The Thruway Authority initially was supposed to remove the Grand Island tolls years ago but because they pay outrageous contracts to shitty painters to maintain the bridges with ugly ass paint, they charge tolls.

According to the Buffalo News operating costs for the Bridges are $8-9 million a year (how much of that is for paying salaries of people working tolls and maintaining toll booths?). The tolls collected $22 million. There is a law stating that tolls can only collect what it costs to maintain the bridge. Add to that the fact that the only years they are spending $8-9 million are years that they actually paint the bridges which wasn't this past year and they don't need  a paint job this year.   

That would mean that someone owes Grand Island and drivers a little over half their tolls back over the years. Where is the extra money going? Probably to New York City. Point is that the $1 tolls are a complete and utter joke and they should be a quarter if nothing at all.