First Selectman Rudy Marconi this week defended his support for the state considering E-ZPass-style tolls to raise money for transportation work. And he dismissed as political critics those who have attacked him for it.
“We’re looking to collect money from people who are using the road system,” he said. “It’s like if you’re going to ride a train, you pay to ride the train.
“You have to remember that there are no toll booths,” he said. “It is strictly a gantry over the highway that records your E-ZPass, and you never slow up a bit.”
Opponents of tolls — which some proposals circulating in Hartford would put near the state line — have said they could lead to traffic problems in towns like Ridgefield as people avoid them by detouring onto smaller state highways like Route 35.
With tolls that don’t require stopping, Mr. Marconi said, only a tiny sliver of the driving population — “the very, very cheap” — would detour to avoid no-stop tolls, and almost no trucks would do it.
“Trucks will not because of two very important factors. One is time that will be sacrificed, and the other is the cost of fuel,” Mr. Marconi said.
The criticism he’s taken for supporting tolls is political, he said. “It’s campaign season, that’s what going on. Several weeks ago the Republicans did a push-poll.”
He thinks tolls should at least be discussed, in combination with a partially offsetting reduction in the gas tax.
“Gov. Rell left us a deficit of over $3 billion and Gov. Malloy continues to fight a deficit now in the $2.5- to $2.7-billion area,” he said.
“So to that end, tolls I would agree with, but they’d have to be accompanied by a reduction in the gas tax.
“We need people to pay to use the roads, if we’re going to get out of the financial mess that the state is in,” Mr. Marconi said. “And we need to see less political strategies and name-calling, and more cooperation between the parties, between elected officials, regardless of their party affiliation.”