Big Brother will soon be watching Big Apple highways – sparking concerns about a future toll.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has begun installing camera equipment on New York highways to prepare to monitor a controversial $15 congestion toll to enter Manhattan’s central business district south of 60th Street as early as May, The Post has learned.
License plate readers have been attached to a pedestrian walkway above FDR Drive at East 25th Street that will be used to track vehicles that go into the toll congestion zone or stay on the highway.
The sensors are being installed on Route 9A/the West Side Highway for the same purpose, the MTA confirmed.
Both highways are excluded from the toll under state law.
But motorists who drive along the FDR Drive are worried that the equipment erected there is a fig leaf that the MTA could eventually use to charge tolls on the state highway.
The state Legislature would have to amend the law to expand the congestion toll to other locations.
“It’s the old game of `bait and switch’. Wanna bet that after a year, the MTA will go to the state legislature and say they need more money and the best way to get it is to put the congestion pricing toll on the FDR Drive and the West Side Highway?” one source who noticed the new detection equipment said.
“You can hear the MTA bureaucrats already saying that it’ll be easy because `we already have the equipment in place. As soon as you give us the green light, the bucks will just start flowing in.'”
The source, who requested anonymity added, “You can’t trust the MTA.”
Agencies that oversee the FDR passed the buck on who signed off on installing the sensors.
A spokesman for the state Department of Transportation — responsible for the FDR Drive’s upkeep — said it does not own the pedestrian walkway at 25th Street and urged The Post to check with the city DOT.
A city DOT spokesperson then urged The Post to contact “the MTA regarding the toll reading infrastructure.”
“It’s amazing to see the MTA turn into the MI6 spy agency when it comes to screwing drivers but it can’t even make a turnstile to prevent subway fare beating,” quipped Councilman Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island).
Borelli was also concerned about the MTA going to the legislature in the future to expand the congestion zone to include toll-free highways.
“The legislature expanded speed cameras in the city when it was still a pilot program. The legislature can expand the congestion toll to wherever they want,” Borelli said.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Democratic-run Assembly and Senate approved the congestion pricing program for the MTA to implement back in 2019.
Current Gov. Kathy Hochul backs the program to raise $1 billion a year, which will be used to fund $15 billion in bonds to pay for major upgrades to the MTA’s subway, commuter railroads, and bus systems.
An MTA spokesperson said the license readers will be used as a “verification point” to identify which vehicles stay on roadways excluded from the Central Business District congestion toll like the FDR Drive.
“Installation is underway,” the spokesperson said. “They are there to prove that a motorist remained on the excluded roadway or in the CBD [Central Business District] by passing through other subsequent detection zones within a short period of time.”
Under the plan, drivers using the Hudson River and East River tunnels would get a $5 discount on the $15 toll, while both the FDR Expressway and West Side Highway would remain toll-free.
It also allows those who live in the congestion zone and make less than $60,000 annually to deduct the cost from their taxes.
Additionally, low-income drivers coming from parts of the metro area more than half a mile from a subway, commuter railroad, or express bus stop would receive a discount.
The proposed $15 daily toll would:
— Be cut by 75% during the overnight hours, from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. on weekdays and 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. on weekends;
— Charge container trucks $24 while articulated trucks would pay $36 during daytime hours, which would be cut to $6 and $9 during the overnight hours, respectively;
— See motorcycles pay $7.50 during peak hours.
But suburbanites and residents in parts of the outer boroughs and New Jersey— and unions representing city municipal workers — oppose having to pay a higher toll to get into Midtown or downtown Manhattan, and more lawmakers are objecting to the newly planned $15 toll while running for re-election.