For Whom The Tolls Toll

I've lived in Connecticut for nearly four decades.  When my family and I first moved in, there were tolls on the Turnpike and some of the parkways.  It was always a mess.  Traffic backed up all the time at the toll plazas.  Thousands of cars inched along waiting to pay tolls, all the while spewing extra exhaust into the atmosphere.  Then there were those drivers who went around the toll plazas.  Since there was a toll plaza in my town, there were also frequent traffic jams as cars and trucks got off the Turnpike to use local roads so as to avoid the toll plaza.  When there were back ups at the toll plazas, the local roads also became super jammed.  We had frequent traffic messes on our streets that were unique because the majority of cars had out-of-state licenses.  Also, many times we could hear trucks roar by on Route 1 in the middle of the night as the truckers went around the Turnpike toll plaza.

Next week, the Democrats in Hartford are trying to push through a proposal to put tolls back on CT highways.  This time, it is supposedly a toll only on trucks.  Let's forget for the moment if such a plan is legal or likely to bring in much revenue.  In fact, the Democrats won't even give us estimates of the amount of tolls they expect this new measure will bring in.  Let's focus instead, just on the impact that these tolls will have on communities near the toll plazas.  How many local streets will suddenly get jammed with truck traffic as drivers try to avoid paying the tolls?  How many communities will have noisy trucks swarming through them in the middle of the night as the drivers try to avoid the tolls?  Who is going to pay for the repair of the local roads as all this heavy truck traffic hits them due to toll avoidance?

There has to be a better way to deal with highway needs than tolls.  There just has to be.