You can blame Mario Cuomo for the Thruway Authority’s fiscal stress — the new Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, that is.
The new Tappan Zee crossing was much-needed — the old bridge was literally falling apart — but Gov. Andrew Cuomo decided the only way to get a replacement built was to avoid all discussion of how to pay for it.
He used windfall revenues from legal settlements, plus a short-term federal loan, to avoid tough decisions on how to cover $4 billion in construction costs.
But Bloomberg News reports that the Thruway Authority is now facing awkward questions over $2.7 billion in bond sales to cover its capital commitments.
Since the gov has never been willing to admit that tolls have to head way up to pay for the new bridge, analysts are nervous.
“We don’t know what the plan is” on toll increases, Moody’s analyst Myra Shankin told Bloomberg. “And because we don’t know what the plan is, we can’t make projections on what kind of revenue they’re going to throw off.”
Cuomo’s people say not to worry, there’s “time for a tolling plan to be developed.”
The math is pretty obvious: Bridge tolls will have to at least double to $10, as the Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon noted long ago. And they may go higher — it’s $16 for the George Washington Bridge, after all, and the longer the hike is delayed, the deeper in the hole the Thruway Authority will be.
This is only one of the politically tough fiscal cans that the governor has been kicking down the road for years now, and eventually the bills will have to be paid.
If you’re too young to remember why New York governors famously face a “third-term curse,” get ready for a painful lesson.