Maine Truckers Will Pay a Higher Turnpike Toll Starting Tuesday

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — After what amounts to a one-day grace period, motorists who drive the Maine Turnpike will have to dig a little deeper to come up with their tolls.

igher tolls to finance a $128 million widening and modernization project will take effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, a day later than originally scheduled.

urnpike officials said they wanted to give motorists more time and warning to prepare for the increase.

They'll be more in a mind-set for it Tuesday than they would be on Monday," turnpike spokesman Dan Paradee said. "It also gives us one more day to put up signs at the toll booths."

Last month, turnpike officials scaled back a portion of the increase targeted at commuters and commercial drivers, the groups hardest hit by the toll formula originally adopted last November.

Under the new rates, commuters who pay quarterly will pay an average 40 percent more and commercial drivers will pay 45 percent more.

or the past few weeks, turnpike workers have been scrambling to prepare new rate charts, add two new booths at Exit 6A and inform commuters and commercial drivers of the newly revised rates, Paradee said.

"It's all ready to go right now," he said, noting that the final step comes Monday night when workers take laptop computers out to the toll booths to download the new rates into the electronic toll collection system.

He said the new exit tolls in Scarborough and Falmouth are supposed to be temporary. The goal, he said, is to make the turnpike an "open barrier" system by 2002.