New York, NY —

Legislative leaders broke for the Passover and Easter Holidays with no transit deal. One of the loudest voices opposing any bridge tolls has been State Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr. But two thirds of the households in his district don't own cars. WNYC’s Ailsa Chang spent some time with South Bronx residents to get a reading on their views of the MTA bailout.

REPORTER: Let’s say you had to pick one – higher subway fares or more bridge tolls? I asked more than a hundred people that question right here, at the corner of Hunts Point Avenue and East 163rd Street in the Bronx. It’s a busy intersection in Senator Diaz’s district. He says tolls will hit this community hard.... But many of the people I talked to didn’t share his view.

VOICE: Let the drivers deal with it.

VOICE: Me, personally, I would hit the drivers

VOICE: The drivers

VOICE: I would hit the drivers

REPORTER: Those are some of the 140 thousand transit riders in this district. Terrell Jones, a 52-year old resident of Hunts Point, is one of them. For him, the issue comes down to numbers. The smaller group should be the one to pay.

JONES: I think there’s more people who take mass transit than drive. And I think the people who drive should take mass transit.

REPORTER: No one here wants to pay more for the subway. Especially when the current fare buys only crowded cars and long waits between trains.

VOICE: The service sucks.

VOICE: Why raise the fare when the service sucks? It really and truly sucks.

VOICE: And the service sucks. It’s not like they’re putting out more trains, better service, cleaner train stations.

REPORTER: But getting around in a car is a luxury many of them can afford. That’s why subway riders like Martin Thespia say drivers should shoulder the bailout burden for the riders.

THESPIA: If they got cars and got money to pay for gas, then they got money to pay for tolls, right? Person taking public transportation, chances are you don’t got that much money. Right? It’s logic?

REPORTER: The perception that drivers are richer than riders holds some truth here. The 2000 census says the average household without a car in this district earns about 26 thousand a year. Households with cars earn almost twice as much. Diaz didn’t return our calls, but he has said that bridge tolls would hurt plenty of people – seniors driving to doctors appointments, taxis driving across boroughs and businesses making deliveries in and out of his district.

That argument makes sense to Ray Rodriguez. He’s the manager of Royal Plumbing Supply in the Bronx, just 10 blocks away from the 3rd Avenue Harlem River Bridge. The store now uses the free bridges to circumvent the toll bridges. If they had to start paying, they’d probably cut off all deliveries into Manhattan.

RODRIGUEZ: Right now, we’re struggling with deliveries as it is, since business has slowed down. We’re having to cut down on the amount of deliveries going out because it’s costing us money.

There were other drivers in the South Bronx who took Rodriguez’s side…

VOICE: I think they should hit the subway riders

VOICE: If they hit the drivers with tolls, there’s going to be a lot of traffic everywhere

REPORTER: Then there were subway riders who had the recession on their minds. Like Carmen Andino. She says drivers are already getting hit with expenses most subway riders never worry about -- like gas, insurance and parking. So Albany shouldn’t slap them with another cost.

ANDINO: I have children, I have grandchildren, they have cars …. There’s no money! There’s no money! …. Everybody is going through the same thing. People with cars and without cars.

REPORTER: Tolling the 13 remaining free bridges would raise about 600 million a year for the MTA. But when you tell *that* to people here in the South Bronx, the same question keeps coming up.

VOICE: Somebody please tell me where’s all this money going to?

VOICE: Where’s all this money that MTA has?

VOICE: For them to say they ain’t got no money? Come on, now…

REPORTER: State Senators have said bridge tolls are "off the table." But at the same time, the senators have yet to provide an alternative that could fund the MTA at the same level. Without an agreement, fare hikes are slated to go into effect May 31st. For WNYC, I’m Ailsa Chang.