Massachusetts

Massachusetts DOT is seeking a new Deputy Director of Statewide Tolling to "transition existing toll collection operations to Open Road Tolling or All Electronic Tolling.”  The move reported first by Hilary Chabot at the Boston Herald pays up to $102k/yr and is open only to state employees.

The tolling deputy director would also assess installation costs, savings from eliminating toll collectors, and likely traffic improvements from free-flow all-electronic tolling.

Mary Z Connaughton, former Massachusetts Turnpike Authority board member and an accountant by profession says folding the Turnpike into a new state department of transportation as "reform" is a flop. She notes in a column she has just written - published in MetroWest Daily News Dec 13 - that claims before the merger of a $6.5b saving over 20 years are now being downplayed by the Patrick administration.

Turnpike pay scales and conditions often 50% higher than the state highway department are causing major problems in efforts to integrate the two into a new Massachusetts DOT. The incoming secretary and present Turnpike CEO Jeffrey Mullan said this week in the state legislature that reconciling the differences presented "significant challenges."

Mass Turnpike CEO Jeffrey Mullan has written that the state Treasurer Timothy Cahill committed "several basic inaccuracies" in comments he made suggesting a settlement of the class action lawsuit led by Jan Schlichtmann. The suit claims use of Turnpike tolls to support the untolled Big Dig are illegal unconstitutional and unfair. It seeks refunds and an end to the practice of using tolls for untolled roads.

It sounds like man bites dog, but Internet giant Google is renting space on old-fashioned highway billboards to promote its on-line business. As part of its competition with Microsoft it is promoting Google Apps, the search company's "suite" of internet-based programs covering the ground of MS Office.

The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority in its protracted bargaining with the state today (2008-06-24) postponed a scheduled meeting on toll rates to Monday (2008-06-29). The Turnpike has voted to raise tolls by about 60% July 1, but board members say they'll cancel the hikes if they get $100m/year in support from the state budget. That $100m/year subsidy must continue for the term of $2200m of bonds they floated to pay for the untolled Big Dig.

Smart, informed, curious, hardworking, fearless, a good speaker and a quick writer, Mary Z Connaughton is the kind of board member every public toll authority could use. An accounting teacher, she is also a partner in a business development firm. Here's her explanation of how the Massachusetts Turnpike got into a financial mess with "swaptions" - an edited version of a piece she did for a blog at the Boston Herald - full version here:

Massachusetts Turnpike Authority's funding of free portions of the Big Dig has long been regarded as bad public policy, and as unfair. It was a dirty political deal on behalf of northern and southern constituencies on the free I-93 portion at the expense of the tolled west on I-90. Wrong yes, but illegal, unconstitutional?

Legislators and the Patrick administration are trying to find new sources of revenue as an alternative to sharp increases in toll rates on the Massachusetts Turnpike, but they can't agree on how.

The state house majority led by Democrat speaker Robert DeLeo prefer an increase in the state sales tax from 5.0% to 6.25%, but Governor Patrick, also a Democrat says he'll veto any sales tax increase. Patrick wants a gas tax increase of 19c/gallon.

With a reorganization of transportation governance  moving through the state legislature the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority days are numbered, but tolling could be set to blossom. The Turnpike plus the two harbor tunnels along with MassPort's Tobin bridge will be transferred to a new Massachusetts Surface Transportation Authority (MSTA or 'MassSurfTrans'?) whose board of directors will be dominated by city planners, rail transit officials and environmentalists.

A Rhode Island business college professor Carol Surprenant has launched a class action suit against the two Massachusetts tollers over their local residents toll discounts. She is questioning the constitutionality of the Turnpike's Tunnel Communities Resident Program under which residents of East and South Boston and the North End living near the Boston harbor tunnels get deeply discounted tolls.

Controversy continues in New England over whether government toll operations should be conducted within a state DOT or through a public toll authority. New Hampshire has represented the first model with toll operations part of the New Hampshire DOT while, at time of writing, Maine and Massachusetts have their toll authorities.

They may be retiring the quaker hat in Boston MA. Governor Deval Patrick has proposed abolition of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority as part of a comprehensive transport "reform" package that would raise the state gasoline tax by 19c, demand major concessions from labor unions, allow public-private partnerships and reorganize state transport agencies.

James Aloisi the new chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and state secretary of transportation is averse to having his picture taken, officials say.  His old law firm didn't have his picture.

Though he has held two prominent state government jobs for many weeks now neither the Governor's website listing of his Cabinet (see right) nor the Turnpike has Aloisi's mugshot.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick said in a talk radio interview this morning "yeah, it's possible" to a question about whether toll increases can be avoided. The Governor on WTKK 96.9FM a Boston talk station began saying toll increases were necessary although he hated them and wished they weren't necessary.

Proving the adage that all politics is local a new opinion poll in Massachusetts suggests greater public support for hiking the gasoline tax than tolls.

Massachusetts transportation secretary and Turnpike chairman Bernard Cohen says the state highway department and port authority have agreed to help the state turnpike avoid toll increases as long as possible. This unusual move was agreed at a meeting four state transportation agency heads held yesterday.

Who says crime doesn't pay. Michael P Lewis, 46, the Massachusetts Turnpike's Big Dig manager through serial scandals, multi-billion dollar cost overruns, shoddy construction, and a fatal ceiling collapse, 2000 to 2007 - the biggest public works management fiasco in America in modern times - the manager of this megamess is now on a Turnpike pension for life of $72,578 plus 80% health insurance, the Boston Globe reports.

The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority board, united on the need to garner an extra $28m in revenue on the metropolitan system divided sharply, Monday, over how to distribute the increases as between the Turnpike Boston-MA128 and the harbor tunnels, and on whether to encourage an increase in transponder use.

Therese Murray president of the Massachusetts Senate and a Democrat says the state needs to look closely at the merits of sale or concession of the Massachusetts Turnpike. She was reported saying this after a chamber of commerce speech by the Boston Herald which quotes her: