Massachusetts Turnpike

2012-05-03: Massachusetts Turnpike, the Airport tunnels and Tobin Bridge yellow-on-black FAST LANE signs are being replaced by white-on-purple E-ZPass starting next week. And the white-on-green Citizens Bank advertisements atop the electronic toll lane signs will disappear too.

The November 2009 absorption of the Massachusetts Turnpike into the state DOT has fallen well short of producing the savings promised beforehand. But there's widespread disagreement over the extent of savings, if any. This from Jon Marcus of the Center for Investigative Reporting of Boston University (BU).

Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) will drop the transponder tolling brand FAST LANE and adjacent Citizens Bank signs around October 1st next year when its sponsorship contract with the bank expires. The state is going mainstream and adopting the E-ZPass brand-name.

It isn't just Penn Pike bigshots who have trouble with the booze. Massachusetts Turnpike's colorful former chairman and CEO Matt Amorello was booked by police for drunk driving, and leaving the scene of a crash, in the early hours of Saturday morning. He was held in the local lockup overnight.

The incident occurred on River Road, a major surface arterial in Haverhill, a northern suburb of Boston.

Massachusetts state officials are moving to negate a landmark air rights lease to Winn developers and pension fund Calpers for default. The developers were granted a 99 lease on the air rights over the Turnpike in the heart of Boston for what is known as Columbus Center, a $625m 1.4m ft2 (130k m2) mix of residential, office and hotel buildings to be built on a deck over the Turnpike.

The Boston Herald reports that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and his transportation  secretary Jeffrey Mullan met Jan 28 with Raytheon officials to hear their pitch on the potential for all-electronic tolling (AET).

The Turnpike Authority in Massachusetts will formally pass away Oct 30, but the Turnpike itself will live on as a division of a new Massachusetts Department of Transportation that begins Nov 1.  The Turnpike generates $285m/year, a revenue flow there was never any question of the state foregoing.

James Aloisi, Turnpike chairman and a former chief staff lawyer there presided over the last monthly board meeting Thursday.

"Crumbling infrastructure" is usually just a metaphor but it became real on the Massachusetts Turnpike for Margaret Garvey, 49, of Marlborough MA around noon Monday.

Massachusetts Turnpike chief Jeffrey B Mullan is the new secretary of transport in Massachusettts and will also be executive director of the new Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT).

The law suit against diversion of Turnpike (I-90) monies to the untolled Big Dig (I-93) in Boston by wellknown class action lawyer Jan Schlichtmann has been rebuffed again in the courts. An appeal against an earlier ruling for the Turnpike by county superior court judge Herman Smith was this week upheld by an appeals court which characterized Smith's ruling as "a thorough opinion."