Why we need tolls: The money has to come from somewhere

Recognizing that “transportation is the backbone of our economy,” in February of 2015 Gov. Dannel P. Malloy presented to the Legislature a report called Let’s Go CT prepared by the Connecticut Department of Transportation. Let’s Go CT was a bold 30year plan for improving each of the state’s multimodal transportation systems — highways and bridges, rail and bus, air and water. The itemized improvements were estimated to cost a staggering $100 billion over 30 years. Of that sum, twothirds, or $66 billion, was needed simply to maintain the existing system, while the remaining $34 billion would be used to expand the capacity of each system to accommodate future growth.

Next, the governor appointed a panel of legislative and business leaders to recommend strategies for funding the transportation improvements included in Let’s Go CT. The Finance Panel recommended two new sources of revenue necessary to keep the state’s Special Transportation Fund solvent for at least 15 years: a return of the gas tax to the level of the 1990s, when it was 39 cents per gallon, and electronic tolling to pay for improvements in the I95 and I84 corridors.

Didn’t we have tolls before?

Tolls have been used to pay for transportation improvements in Connecticut since colonial times beginning with ferries in the 1630s, bridges in the 1760s and highways in the 1790s. Tolls were seen as the fairest way to fund any transportation project since only those who used a given ferry, bridge or highway paid for its construction and maintenance.

Beginning in 1907, the state’s modern system of paved highways was funded not by tolls, but rather by fees paid to the Department of Motor Vehicles to register vehicles and license drivers. In 1921 a gasoline tax was added to raise additional monies. The rapid growth of automobile ownership and gas consumption allowed the Connecticut Highway Department to pave a highway network of nearly 2,500 miles using these two motor vehicle taxes alone. Meanwhile, toll revenue was still used to build many of the state’s modern highway bridges. In 1923, tolls were removed from all highway bridges in Connecticut, and through the 1930s highways and bridges were improved solely from revenue raised through DMV fees and gasoline taxes.

With the construction of the first controlledaccess expressways in the 1930s, the state returned to the collection of tolls to help pay for this expensive new kind of highway. Tollbooths were first erected in the late 1930s and early 1940s on the Merritt and Wilbur Cross parkways, and again in the early 1950s to pay for the GreenwichKillingly Expressway (Connecticut Turnpike) which was built before the federal interstate system. With passage of the Interstate Highway Act of 1956, the portion of the Connecticut Turnpike from Greenwich to Waterford paid for with state funds was transferred to the federal interstate system as I95, but the tolls were allowed to remain. Certain highlevel bridges along this route, the Baldwin Bridge over the Connecticut River and the Gold Star Memorial Bridge over the Thames River, were built and maintained using tolls.

When a fiery accident at an I95 toll station in

Stratford killed seven people in 1983, the Legislature decided to remove all tollbooths not just from I95, but also from the Merritt and Wilbur Cross parkways, and all toll bridges in the state. By the end of the 1980s, Connecticut had become a tollfree state for the second time in its history.

To compensate for the loss of toll revenue, the gas tax was increased over the next few years from 25 cents to 39 cents per gallon. When the increase in gas taxes became a political football, the state acquiesced, and reduced the tax by 14 cents a gallon in the late 1990s without replacing the income needed for ongoing transportation commitments. As a result, projects scheduled for the early 2000s were canceled or postponed. Commenting on the high cost of ConnDOT’s Let’s Go CT plan, the Finance Panel noted: “If the gas tax had not been reduced, the STF would have been able to execute on hundreds of projects that are now part of Connecticut’s backlog, and the price tag for Let’s Go CT would be significantly lower.” The new tolls proposed for Connecticut highways would help replace the stream of gas tax revenues lost in the 1990s. What is the real problem?

Connecticut has had an ongoing budget crunch since the 1970s, due largely to the cost of social programs (from education to health care and welfare) that originated in the 1960s. To balance these budget shortfalls, legislators developed a habit of using transportation funds for nontransportation uses. In 1975, the transportation fund was dissolved, and all monies placed in the General Fund instead. Transportation projects then had to compete with social programs for funding, and many projects were deferred as a result, leading to the Mianus River Bridge collapse of 1983. A Special Transportation Fund was reinstated, but as budget shortfalls continued, legislators relied on fiscal slights of hand to use transportation funds to cover nontransportation expenditures. In 2018, Connecticut voters approved an amendment to the state’s constitution to deter such shenanigans.

Gov. Ned Lamont is expected to call Connecticut legislators into special session this fall to discuss the toll issue. History tells us that removing tolls in the 1980s was a mistake, as was the lowering of the gas tax in the 1990s. An effective transportation system is a must for economic growth, and tolls are the most equitable way to pay for such a system. We must not direct frustration over the ongoing budget crisis against tolls. We need highway tolls to build the projects in Let’s Go CT and bring transportation (and economic growth) in the state back up to speed.

Richard DeLuca is a writer/historian who has just completed a twovolume history of transportation developments in Connecticut from colonial times through to the administration of Governor Malloy. Volume one. Post Roads & Iron Horses, was published by Wesleyan University Press in 2011. Volume two, Paved Roads & Public Money, is scheduled for publication next spring.

History tells us that removing tolls in the 1980s was a mistake, as was the lowering of the gas tax in the 1990s.

Hearst Connecticut Media file photo The Stratford toll plaza, on Interstate 95 in Stratford, before it closed in the 1980s. A multivehicle crash in 1983 at the toll plaza killed seven people.