Tappan Zee Bridge, New York: les péages à la rescousse?

Je me suis intéressé à cet article parce qu'au Québec aussi on s'interroge sur la pertinence et ou l'efficacité des péages sur les ponts. À New York on se penche sur les retombées politiques d'une hausse des tarifs pour traverser le Tappan Zee Bridge (on démarre la construction d'un autre pont pour remplacer l'actuel) où on effectue des travaux évalués à $3,9 milliards. Il en coûte déjà $5 pour le traverser dans les deux sens. Si vous lisez l'article, profitez-en pour regarder le petit vidéo qui présente le nouveau pont.

 "So far only $1.6 billion of the total cost is committed, the result of five-year bonds that will be repaid through a loan that has been pledged by the federal government and that is tied to revenue from dependable authority tolls. But the authority has yet to appoint a task force to study how to come up with the rest of the money and pinpoint what the tolls will need to be while the old bridge is still up, when the new bridge is completed, and in the years afterward.

“There would have to be an awful lot of tolls to make up for the $2.3 billion,” State Senator John A. DeFrancisco, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in an interview, referring to the gap that remains to be financed.

Tolls have been kept artificially low on the Tappan Zee — $5 compared with $13 for the George Washington Bridge, which is operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey — because Rockland County commuters are not well served by trains or buses and so are compelled to drive.

By one rough calculation — taking $3.9 billion amortized at 4 percent interest and dividing that result by the 24,539,849 vehicle round trips taken in 2012 — paying off construction bonds could add more than $6 to the current toll.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/nyregion/new-tappan-zee-bridge-rises-amid-unanswered-questions-over-funding.html?ref=nyregion