Members of the North Shore legislative delegation are strongly opposed to a move by the Massachusetts Port Authority to raise the toll on the Tobin Bridge to $3.
The increase, according to Massport officials, will be used to pay a portion of the Authority’s mandated contribution to Big Dig costs.
State Senators Thomas McGee, D-Lynn, and Frederick E. Berry, D-Peabody, are urging local elected officials to join them in boycotting a Massport hearing on the toll increase scheduled to be held in Lynn next Monday.
In January of 2002, the Tobin Bridge toll was increased from $1 to $2.
Berry, the Senate majority leader, said in a joint letter with McGee sent to mayors, town managers and town administrators on the North Shore, that the legislature acted last year to prevent any further toll increases until a comprehensive study of the toll system in Massachusetts was undertaken. An advisory committee appointed for that purpose is due to report its findings and recommendations to the legislature on Dec. 31.
“The law prohibited Massport from enacting any toll increase until 90 days after the submission of the advisory committee’s final report,” Berry and McGee wrote. “As of today the report has not been submitted.”
The letter continued, “in scheduling this hearing at this time, before a report is rendered or read, Massport is essentially saying that increasing the tolls on the Tobin Bridge is the only option it is considering. (Massport) has clearly rejected in advance any ideas put forth by the advisory committee that may reduce the financial burden on our constituents.”
“As a result,” Berry and McGee continued in the letter, “we will boycott the hearing. . . Why should we participate in this farce while Massport defiantly raises the taxes for our constituents for the second time in 24 months?”
State Representatives Robert A. DeLeo, D-Winthrop, and Kathi-Anne Reinstein, D-Revere, also expressed outrage this week over the proposed $1 increase.
“How can Massport seriously go to the citizens and ask them to pay more at toll plazas that by right should have been torn down years ago, while at the same time touting a $70 million airport expansion project which nobody wants? If Massport showed even the smallest concern for the troubles of our neighborhoods, it would forgo new construction and get its house in fiscal order before sticking commuters with the bill,” DeLeo said in a prepared statement.
“Proposing another increase to the citizens on the North Shore is absolutely outrageous,” Reinstein said. “Enough is enough for our residents.”
DeLeo and Reinstein have filed legislation that would freeze tolls on the bridge and provide discounts similar to those enjoyed in “portal” communities (those which have the physical structures of tunnel openings or bridge approaches within their borders). The representatives argue that while those communities are rightfully entitled to a discount, so too are neighboring communities such as Revere, Winthrop and Everett, which suffer the detriments of cut-through traffic associated with the harbor crossings.
“We are not second-class citizens and we insist on being treated like all other residents in this Commonwealth,” Reinstein said. “This proposed toll hike is unacceptable and what is also unacceptable is that we are not even offered discounts as others in this state are. Massport needs to get with the program and must stop destroying our neighborhoods.”
The Massport hearing on the toll increase is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday at North Shore Community College, in a conference room on Broad Street, under the MBTA commuter rail garage.