Toll plan for R.I. bridges awaits panel feedback

A plan to raise tolls on the Newport-Pell Bridge and reinstate them on the Mount Hope Bridge has been put on hold, at least until a special state commission on transportation can issue its own recommendations in November.
The R.I. Turnpike and Bridge Authority, which oversees the state’s two suspension bridges, has said it will likely be forced to raise tolls to cover a projected $223 million budget shortfall over the next 20 years.
But David Darlington, authority chairman, said recently that the agency is holding off on a final decision until the Panel for Transportation Funding, appointed by Gov. Donald L. Carcieri in March, can assess Rhode Island’s transportation needs and sources for financing them.
While the bridge authority can only use its power to increase tolls to solve its financial problem, the 12-member panel can consider alternatives and push for legislation, Darlington said. The group includes Michael Lewis, the new R.I. Department of Transportation director; Jerome Williams, director of R.I. Department of Administration and former DOT director and Gary Sasse, director of Department of Revenue.
“These folks are going to discuss things like a gas-tax increase,” Darlington said. “So we’re going to participate in this in the hope that someone has an epiphany and comes up with a better way of doing things.”
The panel has met twice, and its discussions will go far beyond the maintenance of the suspension bridges, encompassing Rhode Island’s entire transportation infrastructure, according to a DOT spokeswoman.
In December, the Turnpike and Bridge Authority released a study that determined that the agency isn’t making enough money from its tolls to pay for costly repairs needed over the next two decades to keep the aging bridges safe.
That news inspired two essentially competing pieces of legislation, both of which would have restricted the authority’s tolling powers. Both have gone nowhere.
One bill, H7070, would have prevented the authority from reinstating tolls on the Mount Hope Bridge, the 78-year-old span between Portsmouth and Bristol.
Although the turnpike authority oversees maintenance of the Mount Hope Bridge, it shut down the toll booths there in 1998 when it was disclosed that they were costing more money than they were taking in.
Since toll collection ended, however, maintenance costs continued to rise.
Because there has been no revenue from the Mount Hope Bridge, motorists paying Newport-Pell Bridge tolls are essentially also footing the expenses at the Mount Hope Bridge.
The second bill, H 7197, would have mandated that tolls from the Newport-Pell Bridge, which links Newport and Jamestown, be spent only on that bridge’s maintenance, not the Mount Hope Bridge.
The House Finance Committee recommended that both of those bills be held for further study.
That was the same fate of a third bill sponsored by Rep. Douglas W. Gabinske, (D-Bristol), that sought to sell the naming rights of the Mount Hope Bridge in order to finance some of the span’s repairs.
Despite the uncertain finance situation, the bridge authority is pushing forward with plans to install an automated electronic toll collection system on the Newport-Pell Bridge at the cost of $1.8 million, about $500,000 of which will be paid for by a federal grant secured by Congressman Patrick Kennedy.
The system, dubbed EZPass, will use transponders placed in cars to electronically track bridge transits and charge drivers who cross frequently without requiring them to stop at a toll booth. EZPass should be operational by early next year.
Those motorists who want to participate will be charged $20 to $25 for the transponder, according to Darlington. A consultant has told the authority it will be likely distribute about 35,000 transponders.
It’s not a revenue generator, however. “With EZPass, there’s going to be transactional costs to collect tolls from other systems, such as credit cards,” Darlington explained.
Darlington said that the Turnpike and Bridge Authority is the last tolling agency on the East Coast that hasn’t installing an electronic tolling system.
What affect will the system have on the possible tolling increases? None. “These are two completely separate discussions,” Darlington said.
From the day the Newport-Pell opened in 1969, the price to cross has remained unchanged: $2 a car if paying by cash, less for those using tokens.
The authority has been able to avoid a toll hike because for many years a steady increase in traffic boosted revenues. But since 2002, the number of vehicles crossing has remained flat at about 10 million cars annually.
Officials said the authority’s annual income has remained at about $14 million in recent years. To make ends meet, the authority also has deferred some of the more costly repairs on both bridges.
In one scenario outlined in last year’s study, annual toll increase of 25 cents per trip for token users to 50 cents per trip for others motorists over five years at the Newport-Pell Bridge would bring in an added $149 million over 20 years, according to the study.
The authority held three public forums about the possibility of toll increases, but “they weren’t terribly well-attended,” Darlington said. About 70 people attended a meeting in Jamestown, 20 in Newport and 40 in Bristol.
Although some of the attendees had good ideas about tweaking the way the authority charges motorists who cross the Newport-Pell Bridge frequently, Darlington said, none of the discussion changed the likelihood that tolls will have to be increased. &#8226