New England News

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

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It's official: Plan to remove Turnpike Tolls dead

BOSTON -- It's official. Drivers on the Massachusetts Turnpike won't be seeing any toll booths coming down in the foreseeable future.

That's the word from state Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen, an appointee of Gov. Deval Patrick, who said he met privately with Turnpike Chairman John Cogliano and board member Thomas Trimarco, both appointees of former Gov. Mitt Romney, on Tuesday to discuss the plan.

Cogliano and Trimarco made their best pitch in favor of the plan, according to Cohen, who said he responded by repeating Patrick's opposition, saying the state can't afford to lose toll revenue at a time when Massachusetts is facing budget shortfalls for transportation projects.

"I think this is something they wanted to hear directly from us," Cohen said. "They understand that they need our support and approval and we made it very clear that that was not going to happen."

Jon Carlisle, a spokesman for Cogliano, said, as a result of meeting the Turnpike board will shelve the plan.

Carlisle said the meeting was "constructive" and that Trimarco and Cogliano wanted the chance to make the case for the toll plan directly to members of the Patrick administration.

In the end, however, all sides acknowledged that the plan couldn't go forward without the backing of the administration. To take down the tolls, the Turnpike would have to be transferred to the state Highway Department. That couldn't happen without the administration signing off the transfer.

"I think it's safe to say that for the foreseeable future we have no intention of moving forward on removing tolls from the western Turnpike," Carlisle said. "We accepted that."

Board member Mary Z. Connaughton of Framingham, an appointee of Republican Romney who supported the toll removal plan, said she would not consider the proposal dead until the Democratic governor "says it from his own lips." She called on Patrick to explain his decision to drivers west of Boston who she said subsidize road payments for eastern drivers. She had said on Monday that without Patrick's support the plan would be dead.

"This has been the major criticism of Deval Patrick since he got into office, that he won't personally take a position on anything," Connaughton said. "It's a shame that one of his first official acts is to disregard fairness for Metrowest drivers."

In the end, it came down to a matter of money, according to Cohen, who said the state simply couldn't afford to forego toll dollars, especially at a time when Patrick is warning of a $1 billion budget shortfall.

"We don't think it's either timely or prudent to eliminate any transportation funding source in light of the choices we face in how to pay for the transportation challenges that we face," Cohen said.

Cohen said the topic of a gas tax was raised briefly, but not discussed at length.

Trimarco and other Romney-appointed members of the Turnpike board said they would support up to a 10-cent hike in the state gas tax to help pay to remove all tolls, but Patrick quickly dismissed the idea, telling reporters last month "I don't have any plans to raise the gas tax."

Criticism of the toll plan erupted almost as soon as it was announced by Romney during the height of the campaign for governor. Skeptics saw it as an attempt to boost the flagging campaign of Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, the Republican candidate for governor.

Romney argued that eliminating tolls would ultimately save the state money by merging the Turnpike with the state highway department -- and will make good on a long-delayed promise to make the roadway free after the initial bonds were paid off.

Patrick initially said he was open to the possibility of removing the tolls, but later said financial briefings convinced him the road could not be maintained properly without the $114 million in revenue that would be lost by stopping existing toll collections west of Route 128.

Cohen said he understands the frustration of Turnpike drivers, who have long complained that they are carrying an unfair burden and that tolls should have been removed years ago when the road's original bonds were paid off in 1983.

"But we have to deal with the funding realities of 2007 and we have a big funding problem on our hands," Cohen said. "We're going to need every dollar and this is not the time to be making that kind of decision."

On Tuesday, The Boston Globe reported that the Turnpike Authority paid seven consultants, including four law firms, to review legal, environmental, labor and financial issues related to the proposal at a cost of almost $591,000.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)