Malloy Makes Passionate Plea For $10M Toll Study And He Wins

HARTFORD, CT — The State Bond Commission voted 6-3 in favor of bonding $10 million to study electronic tolling in Connecticut. Gov. Dannel Malloy made one last plea to bond $10 million to study the ins and outs of electronic tolling in Connecticut.

Malloy said that the cost of studying tolls in Indiana was $10 million. The state went on to approve tolls with a Republican legislature and Republican governor.

The topic of electronic tolling has come up in the past two legislative sessions, but never made it to a full vote.

It will take at least nine months to find a vendor to perform the study. A new governor and a new legislature could decide not to spend the money, but bonding now would get the ball rolling should they want the study performed, he said.

“On many occasions members of the legislature claimed they didn’t know enough about this issue to take it on,” Malloy said at a press conference after the vote.

He added that it is imperative to have a modern transportation system to compete with neighboring states like New York and Massachusetts for jobs.

“I don't’ want to hear from Republicans that we are losing jobs to Boston when we don’t have transportation to compete with Boston,” Malloy said.

The governor also took a shot at Danbury Mayor and Republican governor candidate Mark Boughton who is advocating for investing in the I-84 Mixmaster project, but not widening I-95.

“And I certainly don’t want to hear mayors of portions of our state say that they don’t want to see someone else's road widened while they advocate for their own system to be widened along the Danbury corridor,” he said.

Boughton said he would cancel the study if he became governor.

The study would look at what tolls would like like and what kind of revenue they would raise.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont said the study would be a waste of money as a similar study was done in 2009.

“...I would utilize existing data to determine how much revenue Connecticut can generate from tolling the out-of-state trucks that are damaging our roads at taxpayer expense,” Lamont said in a statement.

Republican governor candidate David Stemerman criticized the study and tolls in general.

“Today’s vote, and frankly the entire debate over tolls, highlights the failed leadership of Dan Malloy and the Democrats who have run the Transportation Trust fund and our state’s infrastructure into the ground. It’s outrageous that their only answer to failed government leadership is to raise taxes on Connecticut commuters who are already over-burdened and fleeing the state in droves," he said.

Malloy compared the $10 million cost to other projects, including $2.5 million that was given to the Shoreline Trolley Museum in East Haven.

“That’s a museum celebrating our transportation past,” he said. “You’re telling me we can’t spend a little more to study our transportation future? Of course we can. Of course we can learn more. We do it all the time.”

He also said that studies have been done on parking garages, widening I-95 and I-84 and improving I-91.

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