Lamont toll plan ‘new territory’ for feds

Gusty winds peppered Gov. Ned Lamont with dust and occasional snow flurries Monday as he stood beneath the “mixmaster,” the outmoded Interstate 84 and Route 8 interchange undergoing a $152.9 million rehabilitation that will buy Connecticut time — putting off a far more expensive and disruptive replacement for another 25 years.

Looming above him like a prehistoric, if badly rusting, octopus, the mixmaster provided a telegenic backdrop for the easiest part of Lamont’s campaign to win approval of electronic highway tolls: Demonstrating how desperate the need is for modernization of an interstate highway system conceived in the 1950s.

The harder part is answering the many questions that so far have stymied the new administration, among them: Where precisely would the overhead tolling gantries go up? What would the tolls costs local commuters? How much of a discount could the state offer locals without provoking a court challenge from the interstate trucking industry?

No state has attempted what Connecticut is now in the early stages of promoting: Devising a plan to install tolling on existing highways throughout the state, as opposed to placing tolls on a single road, bridge or tunnel.

“I think this is new territory for all of us,” said Cynthia Essenmacher, the tolling program manager at the Federal Highway Administration’s Center for Innovative Finance Support.

Retrofitting an old interstate highway system with tolls is a complex undertaking, especially when most of the system was constructed with federal funds. The Lamont administration would like to install tolls on its three major interstates: 84, 91 and 95, plus the cars-only Merritt Parkway.

Essenmacher said in a telephone interview that Connecticut is not the only state exploring using electronic tolls to finance the reconstruction, modernization or expansion of highways on a regional scale, but none has come forward with a detailed, statewide plan for review by the federal government.

Federal law generally prohibits adding tolls to existing interstate highways, but Connecticut is one of 13 states in the Federal Highway Administration’s “Value Pricing Pilot Program,” which requires congestion pricing to encourage commuters to drive at off-peak times. Federal law also allows tolls to pay for the reconstruction of highways.

“Connecticut has not determined where it would seek federal tolling authority on their projects,” Essenmacher said. “It remains to be seen how exactly the tolling scheme would be played out under federal law.”

Based on Lamont’s comments Monday, Connecticut has considerable work to do.

His predecessor, Dannel P. Malloy, arranged for the Bond Commission to approve $10 million in planning funds for a tolling system, but Lamont has yet to sign off on going ahead with the expenditure and seems disinclined to do so until the Legislature signals its supports for tolls.

Lamont has presented lawmakers with two options: electronic tolling on all motor vehicles or just trucks, as he proposed during the campaign. But the first option clearly is Lamont’s choice, as his administration now concedes that trucks-only tolls would raise too little revenue to make a difference and would be vulnerable to legal challenge.

“We’re going to lay out these different options to the Legislature,” Lamont said Monday. “Once we get a green light on how we want to proceed, then we’re going to put in place the study we need to tell us exactly how we roll this out and, working with the Legislature, figure out what is a reasonable way to price it and what it looks like.”

There is a chicken-andegg aspect to the tolls issue: Lamont wants legislative endorsement to spend more money, but some legislators want more details that could require further study.

CDM Smith, a consultant for the state Department of Transportation, produced an evaluation last year of various tolling options for a system far more extensive than Lamont now wants lawmakers to consider. In addition to the Merritt and interstates 84, 91 and 95, that evaluation assumed tolls on Routes, 2, 8 and 9, the state’s busiest highways, and secondary intestates like 291, 395 and 691.

Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, said the Smith study is of limited use, given that Lamont’s proposal is different than the potential system evaluated by the consultant. He wants the governor to consider a Republican infrastructure plan that would rely on the state’s existing borrowing capacity, but set transportation as a priority.