(Photo credit: Brian Hedden)
Good news for drivers coming back to Bay Ridge from Staten Island: the MTA will be performing work over the weekend that will give motorists a straight drive through the area where 11 toll booths once stood.
So try to keep that in mind if you have to make the Brooklyn-bound crossing early Saturday morning, between midnight and 7am. Up to three lanes of traffic will be closed from the Lily Pond exit to the old toll plaza area.
It’s been almost a year since I’ve made this crossing myself. Honestly, I hate dealing with traffic on the SIE so much that I’d rather take the slow-poke approach via Richmond Terrace and Bay Street. But this has got to be a huge improvement for traffic flow. The Brooklyn-bound toll booths haven’t been in use since 1986, when one-way tolling was introduced, but have remained an obstacle until 2010, when eight of the eleven booths were removed.