Support building to eliminate Sakonnet bridge toll

East Bay and Aquidneck Island drivers are inching closer to an upset victory in their fight against tolls on the Sakonnet River Bridge.
The Senate Finance Committee this month passed a bill that would eliminate the toll, now a mostly symbolic 10 cents, and instead fund bridge maintenance through general tax revenue, gas-tax collections and new motor-vehicle fee hikes.
House leaders have different plans to pay for highway infrastructure financing, but they also include a toll-free Sakonnet, meaning the gantry straddling Route 24 at the bridge entrance could soon be coming down.
That would be a dramatic reversal for a toll plan supported by Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee, the R.I. Department of Transportation, the R.I. Turnpike and Bridge Authority and, until recently, House leadership.
Only a defeat of the House budget last summer, made possible partly through anger over repayment of the 38 Studios bonds, gave East Bay lawmakers the leverage to delay the tolls and now possibly defeat them.
Of course not every interest group comes out a winner in this scenario.
Without Sakonnet revenue, users of the Newport Pell Bridge a few miles away are likely to face a toll hike in the near future.
And Rhode Island residents who don’t use either bridge, including many who don’t own a car, would take on an additional burden for maintaining them.
That could become increasingly unpalatable as gas-tax revenue continues to decline and Rhode Island faces a series of large unfunded or underfunded bridge-replacement projects – the in-progress Providence Viaduct and structurally deficient 6-10 Connector – beyond maintenance of the Narragansett Bay bridges.
“I remain adamant that a reasonable alternative to tolling be reached or the toll’s rate approved by the R.I. Turnpike and Bridge Authority be implemented,” Chafee said in an email response on whether he would veto the Senate bill. “The reality is that there is no funding stream and the money must come from somewhere.”
The Senate bill would bar all tolls in the state except those on the Newport Pell Bridge and create a new fund to pay for road and bridge maintenance.
The new account would be funded with a payment of 0.25 percent of state spending annually, the gas-tax revenue now spent on debt service and a 5 percent surcharge on all Department of Motor Vehicle fees. It would transfer ownership of the Sakonnet, Mount Hope and Jamestown Verrazzano bridges to DOT, which would swallow the quasi-state Turnpike and Bridge Authority.
House leaders, including Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, haven’t said exactly how their plan differs from the Senate’s, but promise it won’t have a Sakonnet toll.
The House plan will be included within the fiscal 2015 budget bill, according to House leadership spokesman Larry Berman, which is expected to be released toward the end of May.
Last week the Senate delayed, for the second time, a full floor vote on the bill sponsored by Sen. Louis P. DiPalma, D-Middletown, to provide more time to negotiate with the House on a consensus approach.
The Authority in March voted to increase the toll on the Pell Bridge for Rhode Island E-ZPass users from 83 cents to $1.04 and for non-Rhode Island drivers from $4 to $5 – if the Sakonnet toll does not rise to its originally planned rate. This month they put off that increase until they see what lawmakers come up with. The Turnpike and Bridge Authority’s preferred Sakonnet toll is 50 cents for Rhode Island E-ZPass trips and $3.75 for all others.
The current Pell toll is not enough to take care of that bridge and the Jamestown bridge, said Turnpike and Bridge Authority spokeswoman Beth Bailey.
So far, the Authority has spent $3.2 million on the Sakonnet toll system and Bailey said it has yet to determine how much additional cost would be incurred by tearing it down. Approximately $550,000 had been collected through the 10-cent toll as of March 31.
Along with a Sakonnet toll, Rhode Island officials have sought to bolster infrastructure highway funding by tolling Interstate 95 at the Connecticut border, something that is currently prohibited by federal law.
Rep. Peter Martin, D-Newport, one of the most vocal supporters of the Sakonnet toll, points out that federal transportation aid for highway projects creates a perverse incentive to let bridges fail.
Martin also argues that the Sakonnet toll, unlike taxes and DMV fees, will bring in revenue from outside the state.
“Tourists and people who choose to have a job in Rhode Island, but live in Massachusetts should be required to pay for use of the bridge that gets them here,” Martin said. •

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