The American Trucking Associations (ATA) and the Rhode Island Trucking Association, ATA’s state affiliate, recently recommended the rejection of the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT)’s environmental impact assessment on the proposed RhodeWorks truck-only toll scheme.
The environmental assessment was published Nov. 1. The Federal Highway Administration can either request additional funding or give RIDOT the authorization to begin the project.
ATA contents the assessment is filled with errors. It requests the administration reject the assessment and for RIDOT to either make corrections or conduct a new assessment.
“This extortionary truck-tolling program will hit Rhode Island trucking companies significantly harder than out-of-state carriers, contrary to RIDOT’s claims when the RhodeWorks bill was approved by the legislature,” ATA President and CEO Chris Spear said. “Given the national precedent that this initiative would establish, ATA will exhaust every legislative, regulatory and legal avenue to defeat the implementation of the tolling portion of RhodeWorks and prevent this cancerous proposal from spreading around the country. This effort is still in the early stages and we intend to fight this battle for as long as it takes.”
Among the errors, ATA cited were that $20 million was overestimated in revenue projections and ignoring the probability of legal challenges to the daily cap rates on tolls.