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Toll flap targets Grand Island - Business First of Buffalo:

Festering anger about the tolls being charged on the Grand Island bridges is leading to a walking protest, set for Saturday morning and for a Niagara Falls community association to join the growing regional fight.

LaSalle Pride, a Cataract City community group, has joined ranks with the NoGITolls group to urge the state Thruway Authority to remove the Grand Island tolls. Grand Island is the only upstate community where commuters and residents have to pay a toll. The long simmering anger has grown to new heights in the wake of a proposed 20 percent toll hike being considered by the Thruway Authority.

LaSalle Pride, besides adding manpower to the anti-toll fight, has supplied 1,000 names to an online petition urging the Thruway Authority to do away with the Grand Island tolls. The petition now has more than 7,500 signatures.

On Saturday, Nov. 24, anti-toll protesters will gather at 63rd Street and Buffalo Avenue in Niagara Falls and walk across the north Grand Island bridge to present copies of the petition to Thruway Authority representatives. Expected to join the protest walk are state Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane; state Sen. Anthoine Thompson, D-Buffalo; and Assemblywoman Francine Del Monte, D-Niagara Falls.

Officials from the Thruway Authority declined to comment.

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