If a state senator from Greenwich gets his way, drivers levied tolls on Connecticut highways in the future might pay at the state”™s border; in Hartford; or not at all.
Lawmakers are considering reinstating tollbooths in Connecticut nearly three decades after they were torn down following a deadly accident in Stratford. While against tolls in general as placing an unfair burden on commuters in border towns, state Sen. L. Scott Frantz has informally suggested the state investigate technologies that would allow for random tolling of vehicles throughout the state.
At forums in Stamford and Hartford this spring, Frantz has argued that approach would limit the number of vehicles attempting to bushwhack their way through Fairfield County on side roads in an attempt to evade tolls. He suggests that Connecticut consider mounting gantries over highways throughout the state that would randomly levy tolls on vehicles passing beneath. That would largely eradicate toll dodging, he believes due to driver uncertainty as to when and where they might get charged.
Frantz said he did not know of such a system in use in the United States, though the city of Stockholm uses a gantry-mounted smart-tolling system using technology from Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM Corp. that levies varying toll rates based on real-time traffic congestion.
Unanswered is how vehicles lacking the EZPass transponder system on the East Coast would be assessed tolls ”“ currently they must pass through manned booths, which routinely results in long traffic jams in New York.
To date, Connecticut has relied on gasoline taxes for revenue to support the upkeep of roads and bridges, but as fuel economy has improved and with electric vehicles on the horizon, the state”™s revenue from gasoline is expected to continue to fall. Any increase in the state”™s gasoline tax is seen as a political hot potato in that it would in one sense penalize consumers and companies that cut their fuel consumption.
That leaves tolls a hot topic in a gubernatorial election year in which Connecticut faces large deficits. Just this month, the U.S. Department of Transportation rejected Pennsylvania”™s request to introduce tolls on Interstate 80, which the state was counting on to help it raise $400 billion in needed revenue.
Frantz said he did not know whether the DOT decision in Pennsylvania would have any impact on the debate in Connecticut.
“If you”™re going to institute border tolls, it comes down to basic fairness,” said Frantz, who formerly ran the Connecticut Development Authority. “I represent a third of a town that has a little over 61,000 people. Over 50 percent of the people make less than $50,000 a year, even though people don”™t seem to look at Greenwich that way, but they do ”¦ It hurts them, and I believe it will cost some business; and as somebody who had a small trucking business years ago, I can tell you I would disagree with you on the fact that people won”™t go out of their way to avoid a toll. They certainly will.”
“Personally, I prefer the border tolls,” said Rudy Marconi, first selectman in Ridgefield who is running for governor. “I don’t feel it”™s fair to tax the residents of this state who commute from Enfield to Mystic, or from Stamford to Stonington. They should not be taxed, but the people who travel that New York-Boston corridor are continuously getting a free ride.”
“The impact on the Danbury Fair Mall is certainly one of consideration for our local area,” Marconi added. “We need to listen to colleagues from that side of the aisle that are going to be debating the negative impact that tolls may have on the amount of shopping that goes on at the Danbury Fair Mall.”
Marconi suggested the state could ease the burden on commuters by allowing them to claim a toll-based reduction on their income taxes; and said visitors to the Danbury Fair Mall and other venues could get a stamp or voucher allowing them across the border toll free.
