Molinari Lashes PA over $1 PATH Fare in Face of Verrazano Toll Hike

Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari lashed the Port Authority of NY and NJ and its PATH train service following announcements of a likely 1996 Port Authority bridge and tunnel toll increase last week. Molinari criticized the $1 PATH fare, complaining that Staten Island

motorists were being unfairly asked to subsidize services they never get to use. Molinari's complaints echoed recent statements by Giuliani Administration Deputy Mayor John Dyson, who is trying to renegotiate the Port Authority's leases to JFK and LaGuardia airports. Dyson attacked Port

Authority airport profits for supporting money-losing PATH train and Port Authority bus terminal services. The PATH fare has not increased since 1987. Molinari has also recently blasted the MTA for broaching the topic of toll increases on its bridges and tolls, including the Verrazano Narrows

Bridge. Although Molinari called for the Port Authority to plan transit improvements for Staten Island, he and other critics of bridge toll support for transit never seem to grasp the idea that Staten Island motorists who cross the bridges would encounter far worse traffic congestion in New

York City and New Jersey if transit service there were reduced or made more costly.

Meanwhile, NY Governor-elect George Pataki pledged to fight Port Authority toll increases on Staten Island Bridges, and scoffed at MTA plans to raise Verrazano tolls. Yet Pataki's solutions for slimming the Port Authority -- to sell off the airports and the World Trade Center -- seem not to make

sense, since those very facilities are the Authority's top revenue generators.