For almost 40 years, one of the few certainties in Rhode Island besides death and taxes was the toll amount on the Newport Bridge. When it opened in 1969, it was $2 one-way, $1 per axle. Even though the span has since been renamed – it’s now the Pell Bridge – the toll is still the same (although it is less for those who purchase tokens).
Now, a consultant hired by the R.I. Turnpike & Bridge Authority foresees a $223 million budget shortfall over the next 20 years as the authority struggles to pay for repairs and maintenance of the Pell and Mount Hope bridges.
The authority’s board of directors and its chairman, David Darlington, will decide in the coming months how to address the problem. Toll increases for the Pell Bridge and a reinstatement of tolls at the Mount Hope Bridge are under consideration.
PBN: When was it clear that there was a financial problem developing?
DARLINGTON: Our revenues began flattening in 2002, so we began tightening our belt in 2002 hoping that in subsequent years traffic would pick up and therefore our revenues would pick up. As that’s gone along we’ve become more and more aware that volume was not going to be the cure – that we may have to adjust prices. And this past May we asked PB Americas [the authority’s engineering consultants] to have a hard look at where the trends were going as far as expenses and revenues.
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PBN: The tolls will be raised, right? Looking at the PB Americas study, it seems unavoidable.
DARLINGTON: We’re scheduling public hearings to take public input. I would say, based on the report, if nothing new comes forward, we’re going to have to find out some structure to increase the rates so that there’s more revenue to cover those costs. But I wouldn’t prejudge. The public we serve might come back with some idea that we haven’t thought of. We want to give that a fair shake before we prejudge what we’re going to do for revenue.
The things we know right now are: We know we’re going to have a great deal of expense to maintain these two aging structures; we also know that we’re not likely to get enough revenue under the current rate structure, under the current volume, in order to pay those bills.
PBN: The possibility of selling the bridges has been discussed. How serious are those discussions?
DARLINGTON: To date, not very serious. … From time to time we have been approached by different entities to find out if we’d be interested in selling the structures. And we’ve met with those who have come forward. What they find is our employees are not state employees; we’re not in the state pension system. The pay and benefits are relatively modest compared to similar state employees. We don’t have step increases; we don’t have longevity increases – those kinds of things that tend to grow public-employee payroll. And because 80 percent of our traffic uses tokens now, we don’t have a particularly oversized staff, which is also another problem that government entities sometimes have. So when they sit down with us and find out that there’s not really a whole lot of fat, if you will, that they could cut out and make their margin, nobody to date has come back for a second meeting.
The authority’s board is open to any suggestion that helps us keep those structures alive and safe. Although the authority owns the structures, we’re custodians on behalf of the public that uses them. So if somebody came forward with a good plan and came back and wanted to sit down and talk, we’d be happy to have that second meeting.
PBN: A company buying a bridge from a government agency – that’s happened elsewhere?
DARLINGTON: There’s a lot of this going on in the world today. … The New Jersey folks have gotten into a long discussion about turning over some of the New Jersey turnpike assets to private entities. There’s been a process in Texas where they’re looking to sell off the assets to a private manager. So yeah, there’s more and more of this going on. In the rest of the world, private entities very often build and operate toll roads because government can’t afford it. It’s not an uncommon thing, and private entities often can be much more efficient than public entities. I’d like to think that we’re the exception to that.
If you look at our operations and believe as we do that we run an efficient operation, a private entity would have to take what we’re doing and add a profit to it in order for it to make any sense to them. And they would have to diffuse whatever cost they had in purchasing the assets, where we already own them.
PBN: How likely are the options outlined in the PB Americas report – seasonal toll increases, leasing space on the bridge for telecommunications?
DARLINGTON: As far as conduit leasing and antenna leasing, we’re doing all of those things already. And we’re looking into doing as much of that as we can. The problem with those kinds of steps to solve this kind of problem is the money you can charge for those kinds of things pales in comparison to the kinds of funds we’re going to need. We need millions, tens of millions and hundreds of millions. We’re interested in hearing from our consultants about all of the various weighted tolling options that might be available. There’s a balance to those things. If you increase the toll in the summer when there’s a lot of use, you’re going to impact your tourism folks because that’s when they make the most revenue. We don’t want to raise the tolls to the point of impacting tourism because that’s a self-defeating sort of thing. •
Interview: DAVID DARLINGTON
POSITION: Chairman of the R.I. Turnpike & Bridge Authority
BACKGROUND: Darlington was appointed to the authority’s five-member board of directors in 2002 by former Gov. Lincoln Almond and reappointed by Gov. Donald Carcieri in 2006. Appointments are for four years and his term will end in 2010. He is the longest-serving member of the current board. He is a founding partner of Gildea-Darlington Group, a public relations firm in North Providence.
AGE: 45
RESIDENCE: North Kingstown
EDUCATION: B.S. political science, 1984, Marquette University.
