Deal To Bring Tolls Back To CT Grows Nearer, Officials Say

CONNECTICUT — There are less than three weeks left in the regular Connecticut legislative session and that means that the question will have to be called on tolls soon. News surfaced Thursday that lawmakers are close to a deal on bringing tolls back to the state, but there are no public specifics on what that agreement may include.

The primary points left to decide how many toll gantries will there be, what are the rates, how deep is the discount for Connecticut residents, who will run the operation and of course how are future rates going to be set.

As of Thursday the answers to those large looming questions aren’t clear. It is likely that the toll bill will have no Republican support. In that scenario Democrats would need at least 14 of their 22 Senate members to vote in favor the bill assuming Lt. Gov Susan Bysiewicz casts a tie-breaking yes vote. Democrats hold a 91 to 60 majority in the House.

House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz said that the final details of the toll bill are being ironed out. He declined to release further details and said it would be premature and open up the tolling discussion to more misleading attacks.

“I think we are in a good place on tolls but we have to make sure the bill is exactly right,” he said.

Some members of the House Democratic caucus still have questions and concerns. The general consensus is that Connecticut residents should get the maximum discounts possible and that the legislature should have some level of oversight going forward, Aresimowicz said.

One big question that remains is who will run the tolling operation. Gov. Ned Lamont has said he is open to public-private partnerships in the past. The relationship is becoming more commonplace in parts of the country and notably was used in the new Tappan Zee Bridge project, which came in under budget and 18 months ahead of schedule.

A public-private partnership would likely require a bidding process, Aresimowicz said.

Other conceivable options include a public transit authority like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority or an in-house operation run by the state Department of Transportation.

Lamont told Democratic legislators that he knows he has put them in a tough spot by asking them to vote in favor of tolls, according to the CT Mirror. He also told legislators he’d help raise money for the caucus.

Lamont campaigned on truck-only tolls, but then changed direction after being inaugurated with a push for tolls on all vehicles. His reasoning was that truck-only tolls wouldn’t bring in enough revenue to help the state’s transportation woes and that they remain in legal limbo at the moment.

The governor is mustering a great deal of his political capital for the toll push. He has advocated for tolls the entire legislative session and has held press conferences across the state next to decrepit pieces of transportation infrastructure. He recently announced a construction project on I-91 north that aims to solve a massive bottleneck in the Hartford region and said toll revenue would help alleviate another gigantic bottlenecks on Connecticut’s highways.

In the past Lamont has said there would be no more than 50 toll gantries and they would be placed every six to seven miles on I-84, I-95, I-91 and Route 15. The aim is to get about $800 million in toll revenue per year.

Senate Republican leader Len Fasano has criticized tolling in Connecticut overall and has said there should be a transparent process. Legislative Republicans have put forth their Prioritize Progress plan, which would dedicate a large portion of Connecticut’s bonding ability to transportation infrastructure upgrades.

Lamont and other Democrats have criticized the Prioritize Progress plan as something that would be paid for entirely by Connecticut taxpayers while tolling estimates would have 40 percent of the revenue coming from out-of-state drivers.