Highway tolls get hearing Wednesday

Ed Stannard, Register Metro Editor

You can have an opportunity to weigh in on whether the state should bring back highway tolls at a public hearing from 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday at Gateway Community College, 60 Sargent Drive, New Haven.

The Transportation Strategy Board scheduled two hearings to get public feedback on a variety of proposals to bring tolls back to bring more money into the state treasury.

The second hearing will be held 6 to 9 p.m. May 5 at the University of Connecticut’s Waterbury branch, Multi-Purpose Rooms 113 and 116. Legislators from Fairfield County, the most congested area in the state, have said they’re not happy that no hearing has been scheduled for that area.

In February, the TSB heard a presentation from Cambridge Systematics Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., which did a $1 million study looking at toll options. Links to the full study can be found on the TSB Website.

A bill in the General Assembly, Senate Bill 445, calls for an analysis of the feasibility of electronic tolls at the state borders. State Sen. Donald DeFronzo, D-New Britain, co-chairman of the Transportation Committee, has advocated border tolls.

But Roger Joyce, vice president of the Bilco Co. of West Haven and a member of the TSB, said the board is not advocating for any option, or even for tolls at all.

“We’ve made no decision on any matter, either in terms of a preference or elimination until we’ve conducted these hearings,” he said Monday.

State Department of Transportation Commissioner Joseph F. Marie said at a recent New Haven Register editorial board meeting that he thought border tolls were a bad idea because they could hurt businesses near the state line, for example in Danbury, that depend on out-of-state business.

Other options include tolling the most congested corridors, turning the high-occupancy vehicle lanes into toll lanes for those who want to avoid traffic, or putting a charge on every mile driven in the state.

Tolls were removed from Connecticut highways and bridges in the 1980s after a fatal accident in Stratford in which a truck barreled into a row of cars. Any new tolls would be electronic, with an EZ Pass system or cameras to record license plates, so there wouldn’t be the same safety issue as the old tolls.