Congestive ‘failure’
Educators: New toll leaves us $trapped
City educators who commute from Staten Island and The Bronx to Manhattan are at a crossroads: Pay $2,700 more a year to commute by car, spend hours on public transportation or change jobs.
“The city doesn’t care about Staten Island,” special education teacher Paul Caminiti told The Post.
He’s one of five United Federation of Teachers union members (four from Staten Island and one from New Jersey) who, along with Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella, is suing the MTA over its upcoming congestion pricing toll.
The toll, expected to start in May, will charge drivers $15 daily for access below 60th Street in Manhattan from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. during the workweek.
Low-income deduction
New Yorkers who live in the congestion zone and make less than $60,000 annually may deduct the cost from their taxes.
However, middle-class folks like Caminiti, who makes just under $80,000, are out of luck.
And that leaves Simthia Ovalle, a special-education STEM teacher who works at PS 188 on the Lower East Side, at a real loss.
The single mother-of-two commutes from the South Bronx, and said it takes her around two hours via public transportation, which involves taking a bus to the subway to another bus.
“I would have to wake up at 4:45 to get ready to make it on time for 8 a.m. when school starts,” Ovalle, 33, told The Post.
Making ends meet
Trying to raise her family on a salary of under $80,000 a year proved tough, so she took a second job, working as an early-intervention therapist in The Bronx after school. But she must drive her Ford Explorer to make it in time.
“If I took the MTA, I would get home around 5:30, and it would be too late to do my other job I need to survive. Right now, I’m not paying [tolls] to commute. This will affect my life drastically,” Ovalle said.
Caminiti currently pays around $1,000 a year to commute via the Verrazzano Bridge and will end up spending around $3,700 with congestion pricing (not including any summer-school work he might do in Manhattan).
The 35-year-old, who is single with no kids, said his 14-mile commute from Rosebank to PS 188 on the Lower East Side involves three buses and can take up to two hours.
“I live right by the Verrazzano. But the express buses [nearest to] me are roughly a mile away” from his home, he said.
He’s now considering taking a job at a school in Brooklyn to avoid congestion pricing.
“Many essential employees have the added burden of traveling to or from the various ‘transit deserts’ in New York City and have no choice but to pay the toll rather than change behavior,” the group’s lawsuit claims.
The MTA’s plan is to reduce the number of cars entering the congestion zone south of 60th Street by 17% — about 153,000 vehicles daily. An estimated $15 billion would be generated through the plan and be earmarked for bus and train upgrades.
A spokesperson for MTA referred The Post to a prior statement from policy and externalrelations chief John McCarthy: “This issue has been exhaustively studied in the 4,000-plus page environmental assessment, and will be re-evaluated for the adopted tolling structure before tolling commences.”