HARTFORD — The Connecticut General Assembley’s Public Transportation Committee held a public meeting on Wednesday morning to collect input on a proposal to install electronic tolls at the state’s borders.
It is a measure that some suggest could solve a budget shortfall in the state’s transportation fund and help fund Gov. Dannel Malloy’s $100 billion plan to upgrade the state’s roads, bridges and railways.
“The declining revenue from gas taxes coupled with natural inflationary growth in the cost of our current transportation program, those lines cross in 2018,” Secretary for the Office of Policy and Management Ben Barnes told the committee.
If you missed the meeting you can still submit your testimony online here. More than 350 people have already electronically submitted their thoughts on the proposal.
Connecticut phased out tolls in the 1980s after a deadly accident at a Stratford toll booth. Subsequent attempts to reinstate tolls have failed.
There has not yet been a proposed toll price, but a 2009 state-commissioned study found that Connecticut tolls could generate between $9 and $22 billion over 30 years, depending on the toll rate. And supporters of the bill say legislation could be crafted so that residents do not have to pay as much as out of state drivers.
“I am not going to allow the people of this state to take the burden on their back when 75 percent of them are traveling through this state and not paying for it,” chair of the committee State Rep. Tony Guerrera said.
However, those opposed to the toll said it would discourage out-of-state drivers from visiting Connecticut businesses. They also say toll booths could cause congestion in border towns if drivers use local roads to avoid them.
“When you have a lot of cars exiting I-95 in particular, down in our neck of the woods, or any border town, it’s going to be murder on local businesses,” state Sen. Scott Frantz from Greenwich said.
Malloy is expected to create a task force in the upcoming weeks to analyze ways– including through tolls–to fund his 30-year transportation plan.
