PEABODY - $2 tolls on the Tobin Bridge, the nightmare of many North Shore commuters who take Route 1 to Boston, are slated to go up to $3 in April - but thanks to North Shore legislators the discount will likely be mitigated for some.
A newly formed North Shore legislative caucus appears to have convinced MassPort, the state agency that owns the bridge and controls toll amounts, to reduce the increase by 50 cents (to $2.50) for commuters who have a "Fast Lane" transponder in their cars, Senator Fred Berry announced Monday.
"It's an exciting story for Peabody," said Berry, who has called the tolls "really just taxes targeted solely at [North Shore residents]. Now, we will have a frequent driver discount," he said.
Massport's Government and Community Affairs Director Tom Butler and Manager of Intergovernmental Affairs Jan Coen proposed the discount to Berry, Lynn Sen. Tom McGee and several other legislators and staffers on Monday, including Peabody's Joyce Spiliotis and Ted Speliotis.
The MassPort board is scheduled to take a formal vote on the matter today. The agency seems to have responded to "persistent and loud" noise from North Shore legislators, including their well-publicized boycott of a November MassPort hearing on the toll hike proposal, said Berry's Policy Director Colleen McGlynn.
"They were not supposed to raise the tolls until 90 days after a legislatively mandated study [on how to relieve the burden on North Shore commuters] was released," she explained.
Proposals for the toll increase came out as early as November, even though the study was not released until Dec. 31, she explained. Tolls doubled from $1 to $2 just two years ago. Now that the study has been released, the Tobin Bridge tolls for inbound commuters are scheduled to go up in April.
If MassPort's board approves what its representatives proposed to Berry on Monday, the driver discount will begin at the same time. It will work for anyone with a Fast Lane transponder, said spokeswoman Georgeanne Tacelli, although the primary beneficiaries are expected to be North Shore residents.
Tacelli said her agency worked hard to include the public in making decisions about the toll and "is hopeful" the board will approve the discount today.
The increase is necessary to maintain the 50-year-old bridge, which is "in constant need of repair because of the nature of the structure," she said, explaining that resurfacing, re-decking, welding and painting projects are ongoing and costly.
The Tobin Bridge is one of the least expensive, if not the least expensive, bridge connecting outlying areas to a major city, Tacelli said. For example, she said, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to New York costs $8 round-trip, the George Washington Bridge to New York costs $6 round-trip, and the Golden Gate Bridge to San Francisco went up from $2 to $5 round-trip last year.