Divided turnpike board sets toll hikes

A divided Massachusetts Turnpike Authority board approved a series of toll hikes yesterday, effective Jan. 1, after a fractious meeting at which several members tried to delay a decision and find a way to provide relief to commuters from the western suburbs.

The final 3-to-2 vote will pave the way for an increase of 25 cents at the Allston-Brighton and Weston tollbooths, to $1.25, and 50 cents at the Ted Williams and Sumner tunnels, to $3.50, as a way to help cover growing debt payments on the Big Dig.

For two hours of the three-hour meeting, the board seemed certain to delay the vote by a month to give members and authority staff time to study a plan that would spare many western commuters from paying more to use the roads.

But during a break, after several back-room meetings with fellow board members and Turnpike Authority lawyers, Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen, who chairs the board, reopened the public meeting and shifted course. Any delay in approving a hike would risk damaging the authority's bond rating and possibly lead to higher interest rates, authority lawyers said.

"On reflection, I think we all realized, or many of us realized, that the need to get started with stabilizing the authority's finances by raising the toll in January was paramount," Cohen said after the meeting.

Mary Z. Connaughton, one member of the board, was livid. She had sponsored an earlier proposal to shift more of the toll hike to the tunnels and shield customers with a Fast Lane pass from an increase in Allston and Weston. Cohen initially agreed with the rest of the board that the idea merited further study and that a final vote could wait another month. But he seemed blind-sided when authority staff told him after two hours of debate that a delay would make it difficult if not impossible to begin collecting the new tolls by Jan. 1, the deadline set by bondholders.

Connaughton questioned why the board held five public hearings before yesterday's vote if, according to its legal and accounting staff, the board was locked into voting for the original toll plan, tentatively approved in early October.

"What is the point of the public hearing?" Connaughton said. "We go to the public and ask them to rubber-stamp a decision that we already made?"

She has long argued that residents of the western suburbs have paid more than their share of the Big Dig debt, because the turnpike has tolls while Interstate 93 is free.

Fellow board members, including Cohen, said yesterday that they agreed with her. Mary Jane O'Meara, interim executive director of the Turnpike Authority, recommended hiking tolls immediately but promised to form a working group that would evaluate how to shift some of the burden away from western commuters.

"We know it's not fair," Connaughton said, her voice rising in anger as she saw the votes shifting around her.

Board member Michael Angelini interrupted her, saying, "This is not the time for histrionics."

"It's a sad day today for tollpayers," Connaughton said after the toll hike passed.

Three weeks ago, she found a $6 million error in the authority's calculations about how much the toll increase would bring in, prompting O'Meara to fire a consulting firm used by the authority and to issue a sheepish press release acknowledging the error.

Asked if he was frustrated by the advice he was getting from the Turnpike staff, Cohen said, "I would like to see some improvement in that area."

Noah Bierman can be reached at nbierman@globe.com.