I Remember When a Chocolate Bar Was 20 Cents

Sunday, 31 October 2010 | by Pat's Picks

I found a great online tool last week.  To put a toll increase for New York’s bridges into perspective for a story on NY1, I wanted to know what the Verrazano Bridge’s initial one dollar round-trip toll in 1964 would be today if it had been increased in line with inflation.

A Google search led me to Tom’s Inflation Calculator, an online tool created by Silicon Valley analyst Tom Halfhill. He’s compiled inflation data going back more than 400 years. He’s added inflation projections for 60 years into the future. This gives us a simple tool to answer pretty much any question you might have about how much something will cost in the future or how much something should cost now.

Check it out at: http://www.halfhill.com/inflation.html

For the record, the answer to my question was $7.00. That’s what it would have cost to cross the bridge to Staten Island today if the toll increases had been kept in line with inflation. They weren’t. Yesterday the toll was increased to $13.00.