How did we get here?
Recognizing that “transportation is the backbone of our economy,” in February of 2015, Governor Malloy presented to the Legislature a report called LET’S GO CT prepared by the Connecticut Department of Transportation. LET’S GO CT was a bold 30-year plan for improving each of the state’s multi-modal transportation systems—highways and bridges, rail and bus, air and water. The itemized improvements were estimated to cost a staggering $100 billion over the next 30 years. Of that total, two-thirds, or $66 billion, was needed simply to maintain the existing system, while the remaining $34 billion would be used to expand the capacity of the system to accommodate growth in population, commerce and travel demand.
Next, the Governor appointed a panel of legislative and business leaders to recommend strategies for funding the improvements included in LET’S GO CT. The Finance Panel reported their findings in January 2016. They included recommendations for new sources of revenue necessary to keep the state’s Special Transportation Fund (STF) solvent for the next fifteen years. At the core of their recommendations were proposals to return the gas tax to the level of the 1990s, when it was 39¢ per gallon, and to implement electronic tolling to help pay specifically for improvements in two of the state’s major travel corridors: along the shoreline route from New York to Rhode Island, and through the center of the state from New Haven to Hartford and Springfield. The Panel also insisted that the new revenues, always a temptation for legislators looking to balance a much larger state budget, be used only for transportation improvements, and to this end recommended a constitutional amendment to protect all transportation revenues.
A history of tolls in Connecticut
Tolls have been used to pay for transportation improvements in Connecticut since colonial times and the early days of nationhood, beginning with ferries in the 1630s, bridges in the 1760s, and highways in the 1790s. Tolls were seen then, as now, as the fairest way to fund any transportation project since only those individuals who use a given facility, damage it and over time require it to be repaired or replaced, are made to pay for it.
Beginning in 1907, the state’s system of modern, two lane highways was funded not by the collection of highway tolls, but rather by fees paid to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to register each vehicle and license its driver. In 1921 a gasoline tax was added (2¢ per gallon) to raise additional monies. The rapid growth of automobile ownership and gasoline consumption during the first decades of the century allowed the Connecticut Highway Department to convert the state’s network of dirt roads to one of nearly 2500 paved miles using these two motor vehicle taxes alone. Up to 1923, toll revenue was still used to build many of the state’s modern highway bridges. In that year, however, tolls were removed from all highway bridges in Connecticut, and from then on through the 1930s state highways and bridges were improved solely from revenue raised through DMV fees and gasoline taxes.
With the construction of the Merritt Parkway, the state returned to collecting tolls to pay for this expensive new kind of limited access highway. Tollbooths were first erected in the late 1930s and early 1940s on the Merritt and Wilbur Cross parkways, and again in the early 1950s to pay for the Connecticut Turnpike, which was built by the state before the federal government began to fund the interstate system. With passage of the Interstate Highway Act of 1956, the portion of the Connecticut Turnpike from Greenwich to Waterford paid for with state funds was transferred to the federal interstate system as I-95, and the tolls were allowed to remain. High-level bridges along the route, including the Baldwin Bridge over the Connecticut River and the Gold Star Memorial Bridge over the Thames River, were also built and maintained with the collection of tolls.
In the mid 1980s, as final payments on the bonds that built the Connecticut Turnpike were about to be made, residents along the route lobbied the Legislature to remove all tolls from I-95. A fiery accident in January of 1986, in which several persons were killed while stopped at one of the turnpike toll stations, brought the matter to a head. As a result, the Legislature decided to remove all tollbooths not just from I-95, but from the Merritt and Wilbur Cross parkways, and all existing toll bridges in the state as well. By the end of the 1980s, for the second time in the state’s history, Connecticut was again a toll free state.
To compensate for the loss of toll revenue, the legislature raised the state gas tax dramatically over the next few years, from 25¢ to 39¢ per gallon. The increase in gas taxes soon became a political football, and by the late 1990s, the state acquiesced to public pressure, and reduced the gas tax by 14¢ a gallon, without replacing the income needed to fund the state’s ongoing transportation commitments. As a result, projects scheduled for the early 2000s were cancelled or postponed. Commenting on the high cost of ConnDOT’s 2015 LET’S GO CT plan the Finance Panel noted: “if the gas tax had not been reduced, the Special Transportation Fund (STF) would have been able to execute on hundreds of projects that are now part of Connecticut’s backlog, and the price tag for LET’S GO CT would be significantly lower.” Reinstating tolls on Connecticut major highways is an attempt to replace the gas tax revenues lost in the 1990s.
What is the real problem?
Connecticut has been in an ongoing budget crunch since the 1970s, due largely to the increasing cost of social programs (education, welfare and health care) that originated in the 1960s. One tack taken by legislators over the years to balance these budget shortfalls was to use funds dedicated to transportation improvements for non-transportation uses. In 1975, the legislature dissolved the existing transportation fund completely and placed all transportation monies into the General Fund instead. Transportation projects then had to compete with social programs for funding, and many projects and much maintenance was deferred as a result, which led to the deadly collapse of the Mianus River Bridge in 1986. Immediately afterwards, a Special Transportation Fund was reinstated. But when budget shortfalls continued, legislators continued to use fiscal slight of hand to raid funds dedicated for transportation purposes to meet their obligation to balance the state’s general budget. To prevent such practices the voters of Connecticut in 2018 finally approved a constitutional amendment (also recommended by the Finance Panel) to deter such shenanigans in the future.
Governor Lamont, who took up the mantle of Connecticut transportation from Governor Malloy in 2019, continued to push for the reinstatement of tolls for several years but to no avail. The legislature and the general public remained adamantly opposed. When considered separate from revenue shortfalls in the general budget, the toll question is both simple and straightforward. History tells us that removing tolls from Connecticut highways and bridges in the 1980s was a grave mistake, as was lowering the gas tax in the 1990s. We know now that a safe, up to date transportation system does more than just move people and goods. It sustains economies and long-term economic growth. Tolls are the most equitable way to collect the revenue necessary to provide such a system. We must not take out our frustration over the ongoing budget crisis on the funding of transportation projects through tolls. We need highway tolls to build the projects proposed in LET’S GO CT and thereby bring Connecticut transportation back up to speed.