Bell soon to toll on bridge fees?

Darlington
Darlington

Unable to resolve contentious disagreements over tolls on Aquidneck Island bridges, Rhode Island lawmakers last summer decided instead to re-evaluate the state’s entire transportation-funding structure.
In a last-minute compromise, they delegated the job of finding the best way to pay for all the roads, bridges, highways and mass transit in the state to a nine-member study commission made up of transportation officials, legislative leaders and East Bay General Assembly members.
Now approaching the new year, the East Bay Bridge Commission is down to less than a month until its statutory Jan. 15 deadline to recommend a solution to the full legislature for a vote.
Based on the testimony and debate so far, it’s unclear where the commission is headed or what kind of plan it could put together as an alternative to the bridge tolls that caused a rare rank-and-file revolt on the state budget.
“We are hopeful this committee will find some grand financing scheme for transportation,” said David A. Darlington, chairman of the R.I. Turnpike and Bridge Authority, which owns, maintains and tolls Aquidneck Island bridges that instigated the East Bay uproar. “If there is nothing, then it reverts back to the previous budget, which gave the Authority the ability to raise revenue to maintain the bridges.”
At least two members of the commission, Sen. Louis P. DiPalma, D-Middletown, and Rep, John G. Edwards, D-Tiverton, staunchly oppose tolls, specifically those proposed for the new Sakonnet River Bridge.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Edwards said his main takeaway from public commission hearings so far has been that other states confronting the same transportation issues as Rhode Island have decided “tolling is not always the favored source of income.”
Both Edwards and DiPalma would like to see responsibility for the Sakonnet, Newport Pell, Mount Hope and Jamestown Verrazzano bridges spread among all state taxpayers instead of only bridge users. In earlier bills to stop the tolls, they’ve supported higher Department of Motor Vehicle fees and fines to make up for forgoing tolls, but those bills didn’t address shortfalls on the entire state transportation system.
“Personally I am looking at a no-toll solution for the state – I don’t think it is fair that people in Jamestown and Newport should be paying a toll when others aren’t,” Edwards said. “There is a redundancy between what the Turnpike Authority and [R.I. Department of Transportation] are doing. We might want to look at getting rid of Turnpike to provide equity.”
Along with license, registration and inspection fees, Edwards said other states have considered a “broad spectrum” of revenue streams, including dedicating sales tax revenue from automobile-related purchases to transportation infrastructure.
But Edwards does not support many of the potential transportation-funding sources suggested at hearings so far, including increasing the gasoline tax, and charging fees based on how far someone drives.
Raising the gas tax in a state so small would just send drivers across the borders and tracking vehicle mileage is untested and presents too many technical hurdles, Edwards said.
DiPalma, whose bill last year would have seeded a state infrastructure fund with higher vehicle registration fees and Department of Motor Vehicle fines, said he has come away from the commission hearings supporting a “multidimensional solution” that doesn’t rely on user fees to close infrastructure spending gaps, but dedicates more money from statewide taxes in the general fund.
“We have to find a breadth and depth of revenue sources that are sustainable, equitable and fair,” DiPalma said. “Whether you drive a car or not, you benefit from the infrastructure because that is how goods get to the store.” One of the points highlighted by toll opponents at commission hearings has been that while the Aquidneck bridges draw the attention, 63 percent of the Rhode Island bridges rated as structurally deficient are in Providence County.
Looking ahead, the R.I. DOT has requested $322.2 million to repair 201 bridges and reduce the number within the state in poor condition from 21 percent to below 10 percent.
And that doesn’t count rebuilding the elevated expressways of Route 6 and Route 10 in Providence, which are estimated to cost $481 million, or the $125 million requested for state highway resurfacing over the next five years.
They also don’t count the Mount Hope and Pell bridges, which are scheduled for $209 million in repairs by 2019.
A state “blue-ribbon panel” on transportation infrastructure in 2008 recommended a “cafeteria style” strategy for raising additional transportation revenue, including more tolls on not only the Aquidneck Island bridges but I-95, plus raising the gas tax and dedicating motor-vehicle fees toward transportation.
The federal government has denied Rhode Island’s attempts to put tolls on I-95.
Rhode Island last raised its gasoline tax, which represents 19 percent of R.I. DOT revenue, in 2009, adding 2 cents per gallon. The 33-cent-per-gallon Rhode Island gasoline tax is now the second highest in New England, below Connecticut’s 49.3-cent-per-gallon tax, but above Massachusetts’ 26.5-cent-per-gallon tax.
Although East Bay lawmakers have made it clear they will support a wide range of statewide funding mechanisms that don’t include higher tolls on the Aquidneck bridges, the legislative leaders who will decide what becomes law are more difficult to pin down.
House Finance Committee Chairman Helio Melo, D-East Providence, and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Daniel Da Ponte, D-East Providence, both on the commission, did not immediately return calls for comment. Christine Hunsinger, spokeswoman for Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee, also did not immediately return calls.
The commission was scheduled to meet for a fourth time Dec. 19 and members expect at least one more hearing in January before the panel issues its recommendation Jan. 15.
If the commission can’t reach a consensus, pushing back the deadline will be difficult. It would require amending the current legislation, which caps the unpopular Sakonnet Bridge toll at 10 cents only until April 1.
Without a new transportation-funding law, Sakonnet tolls would return to the rate the Turnpike and Bridge Authority approved last year: 75 cents for cars with a Rhode Island EZ-Pass, $3.75 for an out-of-state EZ-Pass and $5.50 with no EZ-Pass.
Since lawmakers last summer chopped the toll down to 10 cents and formed the commission, the Turnpike and Bridge Authority has been in a holding pattern waiting for a decision.
Through the end of November, there had been 3.96 million trips across the Sakonnet since the 10-cent toll began in August, and the Authority had collected $252,199.60 in tolls, Darlington said. Based on those numbers, 1.4 million trips went unpaid worth about $144,000.
Darlington said he did not have any information about the Authority’s efforts to track down those without EZ-Passes who haven’t paid.
Darlington says it would be a mistake to treat the four Aquidneck-area bridges as the state has treated the rest of its highway infrastructure.
“The Turnpike and Bridge Authority has a very expensive and daunting task taking care of those assets,” Darlington said. “The difference is the Department of Transportation is always short of money and having to make choices on how long something can wait. When you have large saltwater bridges, it is hard to let them deteriorate and then go back to them. The cost to replace the Pell Bridge is $1 billion.” •

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