WIVB TV4 Buffalo,Niagara Falls, NY - News & Weather - Video on Demand - What About Tearing Out the Grand Island Tolls?
(Grand Island, NY, December 5, 2006) - - Should residents have to pay a price of admission just to live on Grand Island? A new petition drive seeks to follow the example of the Niagara Thruway by tearing out the tolls from the Grand Island bridges. News 4’s George Richert reports.

It all started when Rus Thompson asked State Senator Dale Volker about taking down the Grand Island tolls.

Thompson, who runs the web site www.nogitolls.com, said, “He said that Governor Pataki does not see any public outcry coming from the people of Western New York and Grand Island residents about the tolls, and I said, ‘Really?’ ”

So this home improvement contractor started an outcry of his own, a web site entitled nogitolls.com, and a grassroots petition drive urging the Governor to do away with the Grand Island tolls.

He plans to take them to Albany next week.

Thompson said, “So, I got people from the Assembly, and I got people from the Senate that are ready to go knock on the Governor’s door.”

Grand Island residents do get a discount, paying only nine cents through E-ZPass to cross the bridge, but what seems to bother them even more are the delays caused by the tolls.

Terri Henderson of Grand Island said, “Quarter to eight in the morning, it’s always backed up, always backed up.”

In October, the Black Rock and Ogden tolls came down, partly because of a pending lawsuit.

In 1982, the Thruway Authority promised to drop the tolls, if it ever accepted federal funding.

But it was to drop the tolls other than on the bridges.

Grand Island Town Supervisor Peter McMahon said, “And I understand the law was written that way, but I think it still needs to be looked at.”

Judy Martineck of Grand Island said, “I’d love to see it. Who wouldn’t? But I don’t think it’ll ever happen. I don’t care how many signatures they collect.”

McMahon said, “This issue has been going on for years and years and years, and right now, because the stars seem to have aligned, they’ve taken them off the surface section, we have some commitments from people in Albany that they’ll look at it, and there’s these fairness issues. I’m very hopeful that we’ll be able to get some action.”