NEWS

Toll revenue drop won't hurt road projects

Slower than expected collections offset by revenues from other sources

Patrick Anderson
panderson@providencejournal.com
A truck passes one of two tolling gantries on Route 95 in Washington County. Of the 13 truck tolls planned in Rhode Island, five are running and another seven are expected to be operational by the end of June. [The Providence Journal, file / Steve Szydlowski]

First, testing the electronic license plate readers perched above Route 95 took longer than expected. Then metal tolling gantries became hard to come by.

Now more than two years after Rhode Island's first truck tolls were expected to start charging big rigs, the state has passed up on more than $50 million it had expected to collect from the system due to delays getting all 13 planned gantries up and running.

The latest cuts to expected toll revenue came in Gov. Gina Raimondo's proposed budget released last week, which sliced the $25 million in truck toll collections for the fiscal year ending in June down to $18.5 million.

While tolls were the most high-profile piece of Raimondo's plan to repair the state's structurally deficient bridges, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation does not seem to have missed them.

The state has ramped up highway bridge repair projects over the last two years with only a fraction of expected toll proceeds, and more major projects are in the pipeline.

Raimondo's budget calls for $660 million in transportation spending next year (this counts both state and federal dollars), $206 million more than was spent three years ago.

Out of the $18.5 million in tolls still budgeted this year, the DOT only expects to spend $8.5 million of it. And while previously DOT officials have pointed to toll delays as a reason some repaving and bike projects were pushed back, on Wednesday spokesman Charles St. Martin said no projects are being held up because of tolling delays.

"These accounts represent a snapshot in time. Bills for bridge projects are received at varying amounts as the reconstruction of the bridges progress, sometimes over several years," St. Martin wrote in an email. "In this instance, we have $8.5 million in billed expenses [this year] and will collect $18.5 million in toll revenue during that same fiscal year. The $10-million difference will be held in a restricted account to be used solely to pay for the expense of that bridge project."

So does the state really need the truck tolls, which are the subject of a trucking industry lawsuit pending in federal court?

"Tolls account for only 10 percent of the cost of repairing our bridges," St. Martin said in an email. "The purpose of the tolls is to pay for the reconstruction of the bridges in a fair manner, requiring heavy commercial trucks to pay their fair share for the damage they cause ..."

Slower than expected toll collections have been more than offset by surging revenues from other sources.

Rhode Island's annual federal highway funding has grown, the state has landed a number of large federal grants, and it has begun borrowing against its federal funding again.

Of the 13 truck tolls planned in Rhode Island, five are running and another seven are expected to be operational by the end of June, according to a summary provided by DOT. The last toll scheduled for launch, sometime after July 1, is on Route 95 at Smith Street in Providence.

Raimondo's budget for the year starting July 1 assumes $45 million in toll revenue.

That is, of course, if there are no further delays.

St. Martin said the most recent delays were the result of "the fabricator being unable to produce gantry components due to severe flooding in the Midwest."

Truck Tolls

• Route 95 Wood River Bridge, Hopkinton — operational, toll rate $3.25

• Route 95 Tefft Hill Train Bridge, Exeter — operational, $3.50

• Route 295 Leigh Road Bridge, Cumberland — operational, $7.50

• Route 146 George Washington Way Bridge, Lincoln — operational, $3.50

•Route 6 Woonasquatucket River Bridge, Providence — operational, $5

• Route 95 Toll Gate Road Bridge, Warwick — gantry built, system in testing, $6.25

• Route 95 Oxford Street Bridge, Providence — planned for this year, $2.25

• Route 95 Roosevelt Avenue Bridge, Pawtucket — planned for this year. Toll rate $2.50

• Route 295 Plainfield Pike, Cranston — planned for this year, $6.50

• Route 295 Greenville Avenue Bridge, Johnston — planned for this year, $8.50

• Route 195 Washington Bridge, Providence and East Providence — planned for this year, $9.50

• Route 146 Farnum Pike Bridge, North Smithfield — planned for this year, $6.75