CT Roads Continue To Deteriorate While Toll Battle Heats Up

HARTFORD, CT — State Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano once again came out against tolls in Connecticut and said that the Special Transportation Fund will have issues in the short term even if tolls were to pass.

Tolls won’t be implemented until at least 2024 with real revenue not coming in for two years after that, Fasano said. He urged Lamont to consider putting $250 million in transportation investments that was approved in the biennium bipartisan budget back into his budget proposal. The Special Transportation Fund would run into serious issues before theoretical toll money even came in, he said.

“We are here to say we need to institute Prioritize Progress, we need to keep it going for at least the very short term,” Fasano said.

Republicans released a memo from the state Department of Transportation regarding a plan for bonding limits at $750 million for 2019 and $800 million per year until 2023 when toll revenues would start coming in. The DOT said such a move would severely constrict the number of new projects it could undertake and would lead to increased deterioration of state roads and highways. The memo was created before Lamont became governor.

Three toll bills passed a legislative committee vote last week. The State Department of Transportation has suggested that Connecticut drivers pay 4.4 cents per mile while traveling on tolled roads.

The legislative GOP plan calls for prioritizing state bonding for transportation projects. The plan calls for between $684.6 million and $863 million of annual bonding over then next nine years for transportation projects along with the continuation of Special Tax Obligation bonds for the regular Department of Transportation capital program.

The GOP plan would have a hard cap of $2 billion on annual general obligation bonds.

Gov. Ned Lamont’s Chief of Staff Ryan Drajewicz said the Republican plan to prioritize bonding for transportation projects would 100 percent be paid for by Connecticut taxpayers while tolls would be 40 percent paid for by out-of-state drivers. Lamont has called for a “debt diet” that would have the state borrowing less than $1 billion annually.

Lamont’s administration is willing to modify the “debt diet” plan in the short term if it leads to a long-term sustainable solution for Connecticut’s transportation challenges, said Melissa McCaw, Lamont’s budget chief.

Every other state on the eastern seaboard has figured out the benefits of tolls, and Connecticut is especially poised to take advantage of charging out-of-state drivers, Drajewicz said.

“Connecticut is the gateway to New England and it’s the gateway to the Tri-State area,” he said. “You have to come through Connecticut to get there, we should be capturing that.”

How legislators vote on tolls is bound to come up during the 2020 election season. Drajewicz said most are up to the challenge of dealing with the hard, but necessary truth.

“Legislators have to put themselves above the next two years and attach themselves to what is required to put Connecticut on a long term sustainable path,” he said.

Tolls revenue can technically only be used for transportation costs, but Fasano said he could see a theoretical situation where items that are normally in the General Fund like the Department of Children and Families budget for transportation costs being effectively funded by tolls.

“I could see this building doing that, Fasano said. “I’m not saying Gov. Lamont or this legislature, but I certainly seeing it in the future being problematic.”