As the Nassau County legislator from the 7th legislative district it is my honor and responsibility to bring to the attention of the NYS Commission on Local Government for Efficiency and Competiveness the issue of the Nassau County Bridge Authority. The Authority, created by the state in 1945 with the enactment of Title 7 of Article 3 of the Pubic Authorities law, runs the Atlantic Beach Bridge, a six-lane double-leaf bascule drawbridge that crosses Reynolds Channel, which separates the Long Island mainland from the Long Beach Peninsula.

To cross the Atlantic Beach Bridge, motorists are charged a toll ranging from $2 per trip for cash payers to $.75 per trip for holders of a discount card. Commercial vehicles pay $2 per axel. The tolls were doubled to those levels on January 1, 2007. The NYS Department of Transportation estimates that more than 20,000 vehicles cross the bridge per day. The drawbridge is raised an average of eight times per day to allow commercial and pleasure watercraft to pass underneath.

§ 653 of the Public Authorities Law contemplates that the authority shall continue in existence until March first of 1985, and thereafter until all its liabilities have been met and its notes and bonds have been paid in full or such liabilities or notes and bonds have otherwise been discharged. Upon its ceasing to exist, all its rights and properties shall pass to the county.

This is the only toll road on Long Island. With the governor, the county executive, most elected officials, the public, the news media and good government groups focusing on consolidation, the time for the toll to go is now.

Long perceived to be a patronage mill, the Atlantic Beach Bridge operates with a larger staff than the county’s two other drawbridges, located in Long Beach and Bayville. In addition to the reduced number of maintenance personnel and bridge operators that would be required to operate the bridge under county control, if there is no toll, there is no need for toll operators.

This is the low hanging fruit of concurrent consolidation efforts of the state and county. There is no requirement for a referendum; no approval needed from local governments who see it as their mission to stifle progress; no vote of commissioners who control with chokeholds the elections in their special districts.

In the name of good government, the time has come to take the steps necessary to abolish the Nassau County Bridge Authority, and have the bridge come under the ownership of the county and its department of public works.  I look forward to working with the governor and the county executive to make this a reality, and one of the first successes of our joint consolidation efforts.