Fisherman's and a Quarry

She, sitting on the transportation committee, as a co-sponsor, helped push through this amendment. Makes me glad I volunteered for her campaign.

TODAY, for the first time in more than a decade, drivers coming into Boston on the Mass. Pike or through the Sumner Tunnel have good reason to celebrate when they pay their tolls -- yes, celebrate.

A groundbreaking provision in the transportation reform bill signed into law Friday by Governor Deval Patrick takes a bold step toward solving an obvious inequity on our roadways....

For 11 years, drivers who use the Metropolitan Highway System (the Mass. Pike from Route 128 into Boston) and the Sumner, and Ted Williams tunnels have been subjected to an unfair tax. More than half of every dollar collected has been used not for the tolled services of those roads but to pay for the costs of the construction of the Big Dig.

This tax masquerading as a fee, felt most keenly by North Shore and Metrowest commuters, has cost toll payers nearly half a billion dollars in diverted tolls in the last three years alone. The Legislature and the governor appear to be, at long last, taking bold action meant to change that inequity.

The new law includes a provision that mandates that tolls “shall be applied exclusively to’’ those tolled roads. The plain words of that provision should prohibit any further diversion of tolls to pay the multi-billion-dollar debt service and the onerous operation and maintenance costs of the toll-free sections of the Big Dig, including the I-93 tunnels through Boston from the North and South and the Zakim Bridge.

Labels: beacon hill, state rep