Community Corner

Connecticut Lawmakers Hit the Brakes on Tolls Plan

A proposal for electronic tolls on some of the state's major highways got sidelined in committee last week.

 

The plan to bring back tolls to Connecticut as a means of generating much-needed state revenues appears to have largely died in the state's General Assembly.

The legislature's transportation committee has asked for additional review of the proposal for electronic tolls, a move that would send it out to be studied for at least a year, according to the Hartford Courant.

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"We were able to take the border tolls idea out of the fast lane, for now," state Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield, told the Courant. "Tolls near the state line would impede commerce, hurt Connecticut tourism and possibly set off a toll war in New England."

Instead, the transportation committee last week raised a bill that again calls for the completion of Route 11 in Salem and to install tolls there, the Courant reports.

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Money raised from those tolls would repay the expense of completing the long-abandoned highway that abruptly ends in Salem.

The General Assembly last year killed a similar bill for Route 11.


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