The American Trucking Associations (ATA) recently expressed its displeasure with RhodeWorks, Rhode Island’s infrastructure investment plan.
The plan proposes charging a user fee on large commercial trucks to fund the repair of crumbling bridges and roads. The plan will bring in enough revenue to bring bridges to 90 percent sufficiency within ten years, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation said.
ATA calls RhodeWorks predatory, discriminatory and in violation of the Constitution by interfering with interstate commerce.
Trucks make up only 2 percent of traffic in Rhode Island, ATA said, and the user fee will negatively affect New England.
“By imposing these tolls, Gov. (Marie) Raimondo and her profiteering allies in Providence are needlessly inflicting economic pain – 94 percent of the costs of these tolls will ultimately be borne by Rhode Island businesses – and worsening our state’s congestion problems as study after study has shown that when new tolls are imposed, traffic simply diverts away from them – thus taking traffic off of the interstates and putting it on Main Street,” Regional Income Tax Agency President Chris Maxwell said.
Tolls are not the way to fund infrastructure, ATA President and CEO Chris Spear said. As much as 30 percent of toll revenue goes toward government overhead in addition to toll plazas adding unsafe chokepoints to roads, he said.
“Trucking is willing to pay our fair share – to pay more than we do now – for good roads and bridges,” Spear said. “What we are not willing to do is foot the bill alone for an ill-conceived and illegal highway funding program that ultimately will become an unwatched slush fund for the governor’s office.”