MTA panel kills $40,000 interstate-fee study

PORTLAND – The co-chairman of the Legislature’s Transportation Committee said Wednesday he’s disappointed that the Maine Turnpike Authority board voted not to move forward with a study into whether to charge motorists fees to use some of the state’s interstate highways.

Sen. Dennis Damon, D-Trenton, said he is also disappointed with Gov. John Baldacci for ruling the study out amid a funding crisis facing Maine’s road and bridges budget. Damon, who was expected to meet with the governor on the matter, said he doesn’t understand why Baldacci would not look at “every single opportunity that exists” to solve the funding problem.

The fee study had received a strong endorsement from the Transportation Committee in late September, but the idea drew almost immediate opposition from Baldacci, who declared that no tolls would be imposed on the interstates while he’s in office.

The governor said Tuesday he was pleased with the turnpike board’s action, which came in the form of a resolution it approved Friday not to undertake the study. “I do not support new tolls,” the governor said.

The turnpike authority was to conduct and pay for a $40,000 study, and findings were to have been forwarded to the Legislature next year.

But turnpike spokesman Dan Paradee said the board determined that with the “governor so strongly saying that he wanted the study halted, it just wasn’t going to be a very good productive environment” to go on with it.

A study “may happen in the future when everyone agrees to let it go forward,” Paradee added.

Damon and other Transportation Committee members have been warning that revenues to pay for highway and bridge construction and maintenance are lagging due to a combination of factors. They say the state’s transportation system is facing a $2.2 billion funding shortfall over the next decade.

On Wednesday, a legislative fiscal analyst told the committee that while Maine’s fuel tax was 0.1 cent per gallon higher during the first quarter of this fiscal year than a year earlier, revenues were down by 2.3 percent. The first quarter covers the months of July, August and September.

“I look at this as a rather busy time in terms of travel, and yet we’re seeing an actual decrease,” said Damon. The pattern “doesn’t bode well for the Highway Fund,” he said.

Highway funds depend largely on fuel taxes, and as engines become more efficient and people conserve more, consumption levels sag. At the same time, the costs of highway construction materials are rising, transportation officials say.

The fee study was to look into the feasibility of charging tolls on Interstate 295, which runs from Scarborough to West Gardiner, and on Interstate 95 north of Augusta. The turnpike, which is I-95 south of Augusta, already is a toll road.