COUNTING ON MAJOR OVERHAUL, TURNPIKE PASSES ON STEEP TOLL INCREASES

BOSTON, OCT. 3, 2007…..The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority today opted to forgo major toll increases for now, choosing instead to implement a smaller increase that has been scheduled since 1999, with the authority chairman citing Gov. Deval Patrick’s expected overhaul of the Commonwealth’s transportation bureaucracy as a reason to delay further increases.

“The revenue that we will realize from this increase will require that this board take some additional steps to fulfill obligations to bondholders,” said Authority chairman Bernard Cohen, Patrick’s Secretary of Transportation. “But the board also has an obligation to tollpayers.”

The decision gives the Legislature and the administration about a year to choose between finding a solution for restructuring or go back to the drawing board and consider major toll increase to meet capital needs.

Acknowledging that this was a “short-term solution,” Cohen said the lack of a steeper increase would result in a $35 million shortfall in funding for each of the next two years, which would have to be recouped by one-time fixes and by dipping into reserve accounts. He also noted that should the governor’s reform proposal fail to pass, “It will force us to come back and seek additional revenues.”

Under the scheduled increase, tunnel tolls would increase by 50 cents and tolls at the extension would increase by 25 cents. The plan would keep in place current discounts for drivers who use Fast Lane transponders, although their tolls would increase by the same amount.

"It’s not a significant increase, in fact it’s the minimum increase that we can do given the promises we have made in the 1999 bond covenant," Patrick said during his monthly appearance on a WTKK call-in show. The governor has yet to develop a proposal for how to reform transportation agencies but an outline, leaked earlier this week, details potential components.

One, for instance, would be the consolidation of the Turnpike’s board and the MBTA board, forming a new entity called MassTrans. Another would be to merge the Turnpike and Highway Department to create an entity that oversees all of the state’s roads and bridges, including ones currently overseen by the Department of Conservation and Recreation.

The Turnpike board will now embark on a series of public hearings around the state, with stops in Framingham, Newton and East Boston. Board member Mary Connaughton proposed that the authority hold an additional hearing in Worcester before the board meets for final approval of the increase later this month.

The Metrowest delegation, representing a major transportation hub, largely hailed the decision and expressed optimism that the administration and Legislature would come to terms on restructuring within the allotted time.

“We dodged a bullet today in Metrowest,” said Rep. David Linsky (D-Natick), who attended the morning meeting along with several colleagues.

Rep. Paul Loscocco (R-Holliston) seconded his colleague and said his appreciation for the Turnpike’s action extended across the aisle, adding that the urgency of a time-sensitive solution was actually “a big plus” because it would force lawmakers to focus on the issue.

Sen. Karen Spilka (D-Ashland) said “it is important that we all unite” behind a common solution. While acknowledging the penchant of lawmakers and the administration to disagree on major issues, she said this was different because there is universal agreement about the goals of restructuring the agencies.

Responding to one reporter’s characterization of the situation as an ultimatum from the Turnpike Authority, Spilka said, “I don’t look at it as an ultimatum, I look at it as a possibility.”

Board member Mary Connaughton expressed reservations about hiking the tolls at the extension, pointing to what she called an “inequity” for drivers in Western Massachusetts who finance much of the improvements for Boston-area drivers. She suggested hiking tunnel tolls even higher while keeping the extension tolls at their current level, although she ultimately went along with Cohen’s initial proposal.

“I’m thrilled that we’re not going through with the larger increase,” she told a group of reporters after the meeting.

Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Michael Widmer frowned at the Turnpike’s decision, telling the News Service in a phone interview that “it’s a step backward rather than forward.”

Widmer, a member of the Transportation Finance Commission whose recent report revealed damning evidence of a dire need for increased revenue to support transportation needs, said it was ill-advised for the Legislature and administration to act in the hope that they will strike an agreement within a year.

“It is not responsible to anticipate a massive reorganization as a way of funding an existing deficit,” he said. “There is no guarantee that they will pass reorganization and [even if they do] there is no guarantee that we’ll have savings.”

GOP senators were quick to credit former Gov. Mitt Romney with laying the groundwork for a transportation overhaul.

“It seems as though Gov. Patrick has come to the realization that Gov. Romney was correct,” said Senate Minority Leader Richard Tisei (R-Wakefield) in a State House interview. He added that the onus is on Patrick to submit a proposal and persuade the Legislature of its merits.

Alongside Tisei, Sen. Robert Hedlund (R-Weymouth) called on the governor to submit a proposed overhaul to the Legislature “sooner rather than later.” Hedlund said the one-time fixes that the Turnpike will need to balance its budget over the next two years are indicative of “what they’ve been getting by on for years.”

“They’re running out of one-time fixes,” he said.

The two Republican leaders asserted that Democrats had, in previous years, resisted the very reforms that will likely be on the table under the Patrick administration’s proposal and said the minority caucuses in both houses had filed a set of bills that could serve as a framework for a reform proposal going forward.