Janes v. Triborough Bridge & Tunnel Auth.

• Decision Date: 16 October 2013
• Docket Number: No. 06 Civ. 1427(PAE).,06 Civ. 1427(PAE).
• Citation: 977 F.Supp.2d 320
• Parties: Riva JANES, Bruce Schwartz, Bette Goldstein, and Hillel Abraham, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. TRIBOROUGH BRIDGE AND TUNNEL AUTHORITY, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Jay H. Walder, and James Ferrara, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

977 F.Supp.2d 320

Riva JANES, Bruce Schwartz, Bette Goldstein, and Hillel Abraham, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs,

v.TRIBOROUGH BRIDGE AND TUNNEL AUTHORITY, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Jay H. Walder, and James Ferrara, Defendants.

No. 06 Civ. 1427(PAE).

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

Oct. 16, 2013.

Andrew Palmer Bell, Locks Law Firm PLLC, Harley Jay Schnall, Law Office of Harley J. Schnall, New York, NY, Fran L. Rudich, Seth Richard Lesser, Jeffrey Alan Klafter, Michael John Palitz, Klafter, Olsen & Lesser, LLP, Rye Brook, NY, for Plaintiffs.

Walter Rieman, Steven C. Herzog, Joshua D. Kaye, Melissa C. Monteleone, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, New York, NY, for Defendants.

OPINION & ORDER

PAUL A. ENGELMAYER, District Judge:

Plaintiffs Riva Janes, Bruce Schwartz, Bette Goldstein, and Hillel Abraham (collectively, “plaintiffs”), on behalf of a class certified for injunctive purposes, bring this action against the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (“TBTA”); the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (“MTA”); Jay H. Walder, Chairman of the MTA (“Walder”); and James Ferrara, President of the TBTA (“Ferrara”) (collectively, “defendants”). Plaintiffs allege that the defendants' differential toll policies, which provide for discounted tolls on the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, the Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge, and the Marine Parkway—Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge that are available only to residents of discrete areas within New York City, are unlawful. Defendants move for summary judgment on plaintiffs' claims. For the reasons that follow, defendants' motion is granted.

I. Factual Background¹A. Overview of the New York City Transit System

The Court begins with a brief overview of the history, purpose, and function of New York City's transit system, which is essential to an understanding of the policies at issue here and plays a substantial role in the Court's legal analysis.

In 1965, the New York State Legislature created the predecessor to today's MTA. Def. 56.1 ¶ 10; Pl. Resp. to Def. 56.1 ¶ 10 ²; Herzog Decl. Ex. S (“MTA Website”). The MTA, with its affiliates and subsidiaries, is today “North America's largest transportation network,” with an annual ridership in 2012 of 2.6 billion people. Def. 56.1 ¶ 10; MTA Website. The MTA's affiliates and subsidiaries include (1) the New York City Transit Authority (“NYCTA”), an MTA affiliate which operates, inter alia, the subways in New York City, certain buses, and the Staten Island Railway, see Def. 56.1 ¶¶ 11, 13; MTA Website; (2) the Long Island Rail Road (“LIRR”), an MTA subsidiary, see Def. 56.1 ¶ 16; MTA Website; (3) the Metro–North Railroad (“MNR”), another MTA subsidiary, see Def. 56.1 ¶ 17; MTA Website; and (4) the TBTA, an MTA affiliate that oversees the operations of nine toll bridges and tunnels within New York City, including the Verrazano–Narrows Bridge (the “Verrazano” or “Verrazano Bridge”), the Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge (the “Marine Parkway Bridge”), and the Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge (the “Cross Bay Bridge”), see Def. 56.1 ¶ 18; MTA Website.

Defendants have put before the Court two thorough and articulate reports from well-qualified and able experts, relating to the history, usage, economics and interdependence of the metropolitan area transit system. See Herzog Decl. Ex. A (“Expert Report of Mitchell L. Moss, Ph.D. and Related Materials” (“Moss Rep.”)), Ex. B (“Expert Report of Kenneth A. Small” (“Small Rep.”)). ³ Those reports have not been challenged by plaintiffs, nor have plaintiffs rebutted them with expert reports of their own. Accordingly, the Court draws upon these reports in the overview and analysis that follows.

1. Public Transit

New York City's transit system as it exists today began with the construction of the city's subway system, which opened for the first time on October 27, 1904. Moss Rep. 7. Originally, two companies operated the subway system, under a “dual system” put in place in 1913: the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (“IRT”) and the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (“BRT”). ⁴Id. at 8. At the time that system was completed, New York's subway system was the largest such system in the world; it “was quickly integrated into commuters' lives.” Id.

During the 1920s, this system suffered financially, for a variety of reasons, including the lowering of automobile prices due to mass assembly, a stagnant fare of five cents (and political opposition to raising that fare), and increased fuel costs and wages. Id. at 9, 11. Mayor John F. Hylan therefore envisioned a new subway line owned by the city but which would compete directly with the IRT and BMT and, eventually, would be able to buy out both lines, creating a unified system. Id. at 10. The new system, the Independent (“IND”)—known to many as the “people's subway”—opened in 1932. Id. at 10–11. The BMT and IRT, which were neither entitled to subsidies nor able to increase the five-cent fare, responded by cutting salaries, reducing their workforce, and maintaining old equipment rather than purchasing new, in contrast to the IND's “faster, cleaner, modern subways.” Id. Ridership on those lines fell significantly. Id. at 11.

Concerned about the system's disrepair, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia pressed for the unification of the subway system. Id. at 11–12. In 1939, New York City purchased the BMT for $175 million and the IRT for $151 million. Id. at 12. On June 1, 1940, New York City took control of the subways in “the largest railroad merger in U.S. history and the largest financial transaction undertaken by the City of New York at that time.” Id.

In response to a drop in ridership in the late 1940s, the New York State Legislature passed legislation reorganizing the subway system and creating the NYC Transit Authority, a semi-independent public corporation run by a board of directors. Id. at 13.

In 1965, New York State created the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Authority, which soon became the MTA. In 1968, the MTA began overseeing the NYC Transit Authority. Id.; see supra pp. 322–23. From the 1960s through the early 1980s, the subway system suffered an enormous decrease in ridership: By the early 1980s, it had declined to “levels not seen since the 1920s, before the full system was built.” Id. at 14. In response, in 1979, the MTA began a rebuilding, rehabilitation,and modernization program for the system, entailing a capital investment of more than $72 billion. Id.

Today, the New York City mass transit system consists of 24 subway lines and 217 bus routes. Id. at 15. Some 7.4 million people ride the subways and buses each weekday, id.; four of every five rush-hour commuters to New York's central business districts utilize mass transit, id. at 4. The subway today is an integral part of life in New York City.

2. Bridges and Tunnels

The Triborough Bridge Authority (“TBA”), chaired by Robert Moses, was created by New York State in 1933 as a public-benefit corporation, originally for the purpose of completing construction of the Triborough Bridge (since renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge). Id. at 25. The TBA was authorized to charge tolls, which were then used to finance construction. Id. The construction of more bridges and tunnels followed, with the goal of “complement [ing] the roads and parkways that [Moses] built, to allow regional traffic to flow well.” Id.

In 1940, Moses consolidated the Henry Hudson Parkway Authority, the Marine Parkway Authority, and the New York City Parkway Authority into the TBA to “centralize planning and economy and to fill in gaps in the road and bridge infrastructure.” Id. at 26 (citation omitted). In 1946, the New York City Tunnel Authority was also merged into the TBA, creating the TBTA. Id.

New York State's transportation policies began to shift, however, in the 1960s and early 1970s, under the administration of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, moving away “from a highway-focused policy to a broader approach that emphasized maintaining and improving mass transit and intercity rail systems in addition to roads and highways.” Id. (citation omitted); see also Molinari v. N.Y. Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, 838 F.Supp. 718, 720 (E.D.N.Y.1993). In 1968, when the MTA began overseeing the New York City Transit Authority, see supra p. 323, the TBTA became an MTA affiliate. The merger, which contemplated “far greater emphasis than ever before on mass transit,” signaled that “[t]he age of Moses was over. Begun on April 23, 1924, it had ended on March 1, 1968. After forty four years of power, the power was gone at last.” Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 1135, 1144 (1974). New York Public Authorities Law § 1264(1) described the new MTA as having as its purpose, “consistent with its status as ex officio board of both the New York [C]ity [T]ransit [A]uthority and the [T]riborough [B]ridge and [T]unnel [A]uthority, to develop and implement a unified mass transportation policy.” N.Y. Pub. Auth. L. § 1264(1).

To that end, a system for redistributing surplus TBTA funds was put in place, and exists to this day. New York Public Authorities Law § 1219–a(2)(b), enacted in 1981, requires that $24 million plus 50% of the balance of the TBTA's operating surplus be transferred to the NYCTA, and that the remainder of the operating surplus be transferred to the MTA. SeeN.Y. Pub. Auth. L. § 1219–a(2)(b); see also Moss Rep. 27; N.Y. Urban League, Inc. v. State of N.Y., 71 F.3d 1031, 1034 (2d Cir.1995). The TBTA is thus a vital source of revenue helping to fund New York City's mass transit system. That system, in turn, helps “decrease[ ] traffic congestion on the bridges and tunnels” and “increase[s] accessibility for workers seeking to commute in and through the MTA region ... without adding to the traffic on the roads, bridges, and tunnels.” Moss Rep. 42–43.

The TBTA bridge and tunnel tolls contribute to a decrease in congestion in more than one way. Fir...