- Commentators Yearn for Different Ends to Connecticut's Tolling Debate
- China Indefinitely Suspends All Tolling in Response to Coronavirus Epidemic
- These are just some of the toll industry developments TRN is following.
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Commentators Yearn for Different Ends to Connecticut's Tolling Debate
In The Middletown Press, transportation columnist Jim Cameron, a firm supporter of tolling, nevertheless finds himself in agreement with the grassroots anti-toll group that wants to kill Governor Ned Lamont’s “anemic” truck toll plan. Cameron gives high marks for political savvy to NoTollsCT organizer Patrick Sasser, whom he says created an “amazing” campaign on a shoestring budget and without professional lobbying support. “I’m jealous of what he’s done,” Cameron writes, “and wish someone — anyone — had similarly galvanized those who support tolls. In December, when a handful of pro-tolls folks showed up at the state Capitol, a Senate Democrat staffer greeted them with, ‘Where have you been?’ Nice.” Moving forward, Cameron suggests that the state explore “an effective way to raise the money we need for transportation, like raising the gas or sales tax. Let’s see how popular that will be.”
CTNewsJunkie.com contributor Susan Bigelow writes that there’s still a chance Connecticut lawmakers will foul-up this week’s expected vote to implement tolls, but she hopes it won’t happen, commenting, “I for one am more than ready to never talk about [tolls] again.” She remarks that the legislature should have approved passenger car tolls in 2019, and “This whole prolonged battle over tolling . . . morphed almost immediately from a dollars-and-cents discussion of how to fund badly needed transportation upgrades into a deeply emotional proxy for all the ways in which people are fed up with Connecticut.”
Connecticut Connecticut Department of Transportation (CDOT)China Indefinitely Suspends All Tolling in Response to Coronavirus Epidemic
Xinhua News Agency reports, “China’s Ministry of Transport has decided to scrap all tolls across the country from [today, February 17] to aid smooth supply transportation and work resumption amid the coronavirus epidemic. The move is valid for all toll roads nationwide, including bridges and tunnels, until the end of the epidemic prevention and control work, the ministry said in a notice, not specifying the policy expiration date.” The dispatch adds, “China has imposed a raft of measures in the battle against the novel coronavirus outbreak, prioritizing transport service of emergency supplies and medical staff and migrant workers traveling for production resumption.”
Reuters reports that one toll operator — Qilu Expressway Company LTD — is already warning that the toll collection moratorium may have a material adverse effect on its financial performance this fiscal year.
China Toll Rate ChangesThese are just some of the toll industry developments TRN is following.
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