Cut through rhetoric and choice is obvious on tolls
Have to hand it to the Connecticut GOP: There are few as skilled at obfuscating and misinforming. The Connecticut GOP is now employing those skills to the utmost to convince Nutmeggers that collecting tolls on Connecticut highways is a bad idea. It’s not. Let’s cut through those obfuscations one at a time, ending with the biggest — “Prioritize Progress.”
Consider the bizarre rationale of Republican state Rep. Fred Camillo’s, Greenwich, for not collecting tolls. Wrote Camillo: “On a recent drive to South Carolina and Florida, I drove through several states that did not have tolls, yet had well maintained roads and are doing quite well economically.”
It’s hard to imagine Camillo’s route, because every single state on the eastern seaboard, including South Carolina and Florida, collects tolls (Rhode Island has authorized tolls on trucks). Indeed, the only states east of the Mississippi River that don’t collect tolls are Vermont, Tennessee and Alabama. So there aren’t “several states” that don’t collect tolls on the east coast. Just Connecticut.
Then there is the claim by previous Republican state Sen. Scott Frantz, Greenwich, that Connecticut could lose federal highway funds, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars a year, if it implements tolls. He claimed it is “conceivable that we end up in a much worse position than before and would have then added a huge burden to Connecticut drivers.”
In fact, a 2015 report by CDM Smith for the Connecticut Department of Transportation completely debunked that claim. According to Smith:
There is “no basis to believe that the repayment of federal funds would be required if tolls were re-imposed on any portion of Connecticut’s Interstate Highway System as a consequence of implementing a variable pricing program under the provisions of VPPP. Moreover, pursuant to VPPP and consistent with the 1983 agreement, mileage on an Interstate Highway facility subject to tolls would not be deducted from the State’s total highway mileage used in calculating Connecticut’s eligibility for federal highway grants under Title 23 of the United States Code . ... As long as tolls are implemented pursuant to one of the exceptions to the federal prohibition on tolling the Interstate System, Connecticut would not suffer any consequences under federal law including the loss of, or the necessity to repay, federal funds.”
Then there was the claim by Republican state Rep. Richard Smith, New Fairfield, echoed by other Connecticut Republicans, based on a report by the far-right propaganda outfit, Reason Foundation, that Connecticut doesn’t need tolls. Quoting the report, Smith claimed that “Connecticut rank(s) 44th in cost effectiveness for highway performance — we spend nearly $480,000 for each mile of road in this state as opposed to the national average, which is just over $180,000 per mile.” Connecticut’s DOT is so inefficient, Smith asserted, that reforming it would free up so much cash that tolls wouldn’t be needed.
In fact, the Reason Foundation report has been completely debunked. Reason reached its conclusions by treating a mile of lightly traveled, rural two-lane road in Montana the same as a mile of heavily traveled six-lane I-95 in Connecticut. Further, the DOT pointed out out that the report compared expenditures by separate highway departments in many states with Connecticut’s multi-modal transportation department, nearly two-thirds of whose expenditures go for commuter rail and bus transportation. The truth is that Connecticut actually ranks among the most efficient states in the nation in terms of maintenance expenditures, not the worst.
Then there is the misleading claim that since voters passed a “lockbox” for the Special Transportation Fund, there are now sufficient funds in the STF to pay for increased transportation investments without tolls. Upon taking office, Gov. Dannel Malloy sharply increased revenues going into the STF from the Petroleum Gross Receipts Tax, which had previously been detoured through the general fund, and revenues extracted. In 2015, Malloy mandated that those tax revenues be credited directly and entirely into the STF. He also began funneling sales tax revenues into the STF. Today, the STF receives more than a third of a billion dollars a year from the sales tax, revenues that previously went to support schools, universities, and other purposes. And while the state is phasing in revenues from new car tax sales, STF’s long-term solvency is not assured.
Then there’s the GOP’s biggest con — “Prioritize Progress” — its plan to fully fund transportation without implementing tolls. The GOP’s plan increases borrowing for transportation infrastructure by $700 million a year, all of which would be repaid by Connecticut taxpayers, with interest. But to keep state borrowing from exploding, the GOP proposes cutting borrowing for other purposes by hundreds of millions. What would they eliminate? They won’t say. But last year’s version of the plan included dramatic cuts to the University of Connecticut and other public universities. And it’s clear that the GOP would have to slash other investments in affordable housing, economic development, municipal aid, brownfield remediation, small business, and lots more.
Here’s the bottom line: Adopt the GOP plan and borrow $700 million, with Connecticut taxpayers paying the entire cost, while decimating support for virtually everything else the state does. Or collect tolls, over 40 percent of which, more than a third of a billion dollars a year, would be paid by out-ofstate cars and trucks.
Pay for everything ourselves, while slamming our towns and universities with massive cuts? Or collect tolls and get out-of-state residents to pay more than 40 percent to rebuild our transportation infrastructure?
Cut through the obfuscation, and the choice is simple.