Officials again rule out I-93 tolls

By Christopher Baxter, Globe Correspondent

State transportation officials said definitively today what they have been hinting at all summer: Tolls will not be added to Interstate 93.

“The administration’s position is that the issue of tolls on I-93 is not on the table and is not under consideration, and that position has not changed,” said Klark Jessen, spokesman for Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen.

Cohen, also chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, has acknowledged in the past that "there are limited sources of additional funding” for the turnpike, but never made a definitive statement about the option of adding tolls to I-93.

"Everything is on the table here, and we need to look in all corners," Cohen said during the Turnpike Authority Board's monthly meeting in May.

But Kyle Sullivan, spokesman for Governor Deval Patrick, said that same day that “tolls throughout I-93 are not an option the administration is prepared to consider at this point."

Pike board member Mary Z. Connaughton called today’s firm statement “disappointing” and said it effectively ended any effort to even out the toll system across the state to help pay for the Big Dig.

“It’s so inequitable that one portion of the population is subsidizing the Big Dig while others are getting a free ride,” Connaughton said. “Something clearly needs to be done on a broader level.”

The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority commissioned a panel in October 2007 to study the fairness of the state’s tolling system, which relies on turnpike users to pay for toll-free roads, such as I-93, used by drivers traveling north and south.

As part of the toll equity study, the Pike was to conduct a formal study on the number of commuters using I-93 and the potential for revenue, Connaughton said. But that study was never completed, she said, partly because the authority already tracked that information.

• Comment
• Permalink
• Email