I agree Chuck, we shouldn't be penalized for living in waterway communities. Paying high prices for travel before you actually get to your Destination is prohibitive and counterproductive. The high price of gas already takes food off the table for many. Imagine the day trippers who can't afford a vacation being victimized by even more fees so they can spend more and do less with their families. Governor Chafee not only drives a stake through the local local economy, but his dwindling chances of re-election will be an even higher price to pay for overloading the backs of taxpayers-continiously.

Kudos Chuck. This toll business does nothing but tax locals. We are talking about in state bridges that are mainly traveled by Rhode Islanders (dare I say over 75%), to put a toll up and now ask locals to pay what essentially amounts to a new tax is above and beyond what is reasonable. Not once in this discussion have I seen even one iota of a discussion about cutting expenses or the consideration of removing the toll authority to reduce the tax burden in the area. This is more of the same from a state that has shown a propensity for taking care of the few at the cost of the many.

I agree 100%. Also, you might add the traffic this would cause from people using rte's 114 and 136 as well as 103 which would be absolutely drenched in traffic from a move such as this. It's already crazy during the summer months on those roads, just think of how bad it would be if this was approved.

Excellent points.

Especially: "infrastructure is a shared burden that should be carried evenly".

Many RI roads and bridges are in bad shape. There's no money in operating budgets for repairs because most of the money now gets sucked out into salaries & benefits.

Bonds may not be the option they were in the past because bonds require buyers and the RI ratings aren't exactly reassuring. Also, bonds are not "free money" for the taxpayers.

Federal money isn't "free", either. It's all taxes.

So will the state now enact tolls in an attempt to raise the money to fix roads & bridges?
Will there be toll roads all over the state?
Will there be tolls on the roads in and out of South Providence?
Maybe on Atwells Avenue into Federal Hill?

Or is it just an additional tax on those who need to use certain bridges?

I agree with Chuch 100% - the governor is not thinking straight and wants to put more taxes/tolls on us who live in the East Bay and Aquidneck Island. Many Bristolians work on the island and over in Tiverton and you want to put more on their shoulders with a toll - need to get rid of some of our state people (governor) for even thinking of this. The DOT should be on top of the bridges and stay within their budget - not transfer the bridges to another authority. We all have to live on a budget especially the retired people who can't really afford a vacation away and may want to go to the Cape and you're going to make them go over the Braga bridge instead of the Mt. Hope & Sakonnet bridges to make travel easier because you want tolls. Take a cut in pay governor - see if you can live on what some people are living on. Remember all this people when voting in November.

I must agree with, tolls will hurt our local businesses. By exempting the tolls, more tax money from everyone in the state would help support any and all repairs to our bridges. By not tolling, the cost of repairs and maintanence will be divided equally by every tax payer in Rhode Island, not just those who use it. I personally feel this should be a cost paid for by the entire tax base of RI, not just its local users.

I am not agreeing or disagreeing with tolls, however we need to entertain the cost of maintaining the bridges. How will that be done? Who will oversee the maintenance of the bridges? Where will the funding come from? Let's not kick the can down the road and pass it on to our children and grandchildren and disclaim responsibility - we have too much of that now. As the saying goes "pay me know or pay later @ a much higher price" - just look the Sakonnet Bridge, Barrigton and Warren Bridges and so on. What are the options?

I totally agree with Chiuck...find another way to generate revenue other than sticking it to the East Bay residents. We just succeeded in stopping LNG from destroying our economy, after a five year fight, and now we face this destructive ploy created by our own State of Rhode Island. Shameful. If you have to tax people, do it across the state so we all pay our fair share. Don't single out the East Bay and the commuters and residents who live, shop and work here.

Susan Maloney, Bristol

I am simply amazed by people who think that maintaining bridges in our state should be borne by those who never use them. Comapring it to the cost of snow removal in Foster? Give me a break. That is an apples : oranges comparison and you know, Chuck. Also, not for nothing, but people who frequent The Lobster Pot and/or Roberto's aren't going to bristle at the notion of a toll that'll likely be no more than $1.00 each way with an EZ Pass. Finally, before you attack me for being one who doesn't use the bridges on Aquidneck Island, I use them nearly every single day. It's time people in this country stop acting like everything should be free. We all chose to live close to the water, which requires travel via bridges. These bridges are costly to maintain ...much more so than standard roads and highways.

Let’s see, how about a few things that should have been done decades ago, Like start cutting entitlements programs, I find it strange that people are leaving the state, yet no cuts? Would not services be decreasing also?

We quit buying open space land, I mean really if the infrastructure is destroyed, you can’t get to where the pretty views are, now can you? So why buy it?

We quit these block grant gambles on Businesses that provide low paying jobs. Wow a revelation.

A “LOCK BOX” for bridge repair period. Lol (sorry that always cracks me up).

The State actually does what it says it will do, for once. Lol (sorry that always cracks me up also).

How about the State balances a budget for once? If they cannot then the whole legislature resigns and leaves the State. (The public will supply the tar and feathers). (Not a joke).

No ear marks for any community. Let’s face it you guys are worse then Washington most of the time.

Sell Central fall to a private company? Lets face it they can’t do worse then the State has since 1993.

How about we Start Taxing Colleges and Churches, yes. Churches should tell the IRS to shove it, and pay taxes they can then become a political power. The only reason they are tax exempt, so they do not participate in politics. About time they do considering the Cowards who won’t stick up for destruction of Freedom of Religion, not Freedom from Religion in society lately. Funny; non-Christian has to say this ;-{

Whatever happened to the idea of putting a toll on the CT/RI Line on Rte 95? How many NY, NJ and CT cars pass through RI on their way to the Cape every summer with nary a wink towards, as the NY Times called us, "the smudge spot on the way to the Cape"?

I wish I never voted for Chaffee...I am looking forward to the next election so I can vote him out! Yeah! Such a big dissapointment to Rhode Islanders. He is so clueless and never has to bite the bullet when it comes to money like all the rest of us. The reality of the situation is that most of the state is unemployed and struggling with poverty and any additional tax will devastate everyone. I pray that no one gets any bright ideas and erect a statue of him in Colt State Park! Too bad he can't live up to his father's legacy. Such a bummer...yet another bill the we will have to shoulder. How about taxing the yatchs the state could use the revenue!

We should put tolls on all RI bridges! If we drivers/commuters/day-trippers choose to USE a bridge for whatever purpose, we should pay for it! What's unfair about that? If those who "benefit" from the bridge (remember, the bridge makes it POSSIBLE for someone in Bristol to go to Newport and vice-versa) don't pay to maintain it, who should? Or we can ignore bridge maintainance altogether and deceive ourselves and each other into believing the bridges is free.

This state is Always coming up with new & creative ways & creating & increasing new & existing fees & taxes to generate more money they say they need for raods & bridges or whatever. The problem is they never spend it on those things. They hijack/steal it. The Lottery was created to fund the school budgets for cities & towns but the state hijacked that & used it to increase an already top heavy bureaucracy by creating more departments & more management positions on every level for politically connected cronies. For decades the state put their greedy corrupt fingers into the pension fund from their employees who put it there & used it to give huge pensions to many people who weren't part of that system & second pensions to another group of cronies who didn't fully contribute to get that second one. Last year during a Finanace Committee hearing it was uncovered that the state was taking the money from the $7.00 saltwater fishing license & used it to create a few more management positions & purchase a few more vehicles. And someone earlier mentioned the gas tax which was increased under Carcieri. These are only a small selection of examples of the siphoning/stealing/hyjacking of money that this stare has done & used it for something other than what it was intended. Now it is all coming back to bite them you know where. If any of this was done in the private sector that this state likes to compare everything to those employers would be in the penitentiary right now.

Sorry for my atrocious spelling. It happens when my fingers can't keep up with what I'm thinking. I only type with two. If one gets injured I'm screwed

I will fight against this 100%. Why don't we have tolls on 95?? You pay a toll at the NY line and Mass Turnpike, why don't we let the rest of RI share the cost...

Aquidneck County and Bristol County are losing millions and millions of school funding from the state. Every community except Barrington (whose residents spearheaded the fight against I-895 sending the $185 million to the Jamestown bridge).

When was the last time the State paved 114 before this ongoing boondoggle there now? 15 years? 20 years? How about East and West Main roads?

The West Bay has State subsidies for their area in the form of State spending on Quonset Point (bonds issued by the state for Quonset that the State has been paying back not Quonset), enormous $$$ updates to the road infrastructure in the West Bay and finally about $70 million a year that goes to the area through the State to URI instead of directly to students.

Oh wait you must have read about the new $28 million dollar Train Station there? We used to have train tracks here but we got a bike path that joggers must not realize exists because they jog on Hope Street. Think about that as you wait for the bus to Providence and then lug your luggage to the Train station from Kennedy Plaza.

The State hands Central Falls $40+ million a year for just 19 thousand people as we've been paying 100% of their school costs.. While the rest of the State municipalities raised property taxes on average over the last 20 years by 134% Central Falls has raised taxes just 23%.

We must pay our way while the rest of the state gets numerous tax subsidies.

How about the state fixing/installing sidewalks from Poppasquash Rd into Warren? They are deplorable. Severely cracked & lifted from tree roots & in some places so crumbled they have been turned into nothing more than gravel & nonexistent in other areas. The state must pay $40 million just in interest for the billions it has had to borrow for projects because they siphoned money away, like the gas tax, etc from where it was intended. Do any of us really expect anything else from the most corrupt crony infested state in the country?

That's a great example - the sidewalks. A young man was killed walking in the road near Rockwell school what a year ago? If the sidewalk was in decent shape he'd have been walking on it and still be alive today. The last time hat sidewalk was repaired was never and it was probably put in before WW2.

The State loaned Curt Schilling's company $75 million to come to the State and he located the new offices in Providence. They were in Maynard, MA in the old DEC complex. You couldn't imagine two more opposite locations. Maynard is rural with unlimited parking and Providence is city with no parking. .

Regardless the State could have thrown a couple of million to fix up the old US Rubber.Kaiser complex and that type of company could move in there.

I can't name one multi million dollar project that the State has spearheaded in the East Bay.

We are being taxed to death having to pay by use for the bridges while the rest of the state feeds off of us.

If the State broke out taxes paid in versus State money spent per municipality here this would be so clear that outrage would rise up here.

Here's food for thought from the Bridge Authority's own web site:

"No tax dollars, federal, state, or local, are received by the Authority for debt service or expenses incurred in the operation and maintenance of the bridges and associated buildings and grounds. Rather, all obligations are satisfied with funds received in the form of toll revenue and investment income."

Has any other State been so incompetent as to set up an entity that is NOT eligible for federal funding for bridge repairs!!! Let me reiterate. Only bridges run by the Turnpike Authority are NOT eligible. If the Turnpike Authority were a division of DOT we would be eligible for federal highway funding for The Newport Bridge and the Mount Hope Bridge. The minute we turn the Sakonnet River Bridge over to the Turnpike Authority and they place a toll on it we are out of luck and on our own. Our federal tax dollars will fix bridges in Idaho but not R.I.!!!

Chuck Millard

Here's some more tidbits from the RITBA web site. The Organizational Chart list 45 employees including 9 customer service representatives! Sounds like Lands End. Has anyone checked out the Taj Mahal under construction at the toll plaza in Jamestown. Not a word on their website about what it is or what it cost.

Lets face it the Bridge Authority was created in 1954 as a creative way to fund bridges. That was long before the Federal Highway Administration was created to build and support highways throughout the country. Today its a dinosaur whose sole purpose is to provide jobs for favored workers. we need to get behind Representaive Morrison's legislation making it a division of DOT.

Chuck Millard

Again, I said you do it through the inspection system. The odometer reading is recorded every time you inspect the car. I'm sure we can find a study as to the average intra-state mileage driven and tax at a rate accordingly.

Just to add that using an average intrastate mileage would be akin to taxing income based on average earnings.

You can't tax individuals based on a guess.

I can understand the reason that citizens of Bristol would be concerned with tolls on the Sakonet Bridge. But do not use the term East Bay. The tolls will not kill Warren. The Town is already dead, and you can not kill something twice. As to the Mt Hope Bridge, maybe the state can issue free passes for certain hours for the people who work on the other side. This would make it fair for everone.

Want a toll "booth"? Lower the fuel tax to 5 cpg on diesel and put a service center in on 95 N and S near rt 138. Watch the trucks pull in and pay their $5-7 "toll" by fueling up here instead of elsewhere.

http://www.autoblog.com/2012/05/03/new-cafe-rules-and-a-stagnant-gas-tax-mean-big-deficits-for-infr/#continued

More proof a mileage tax makes sense.

The Federal Highway trust fund has taken in more than it has spent only ONCE in the last 11 yrs.