By Michele Fuetsch, Staff Reporter This story appears in the July 23 print edition of Transport Topics.
New York truckers have helped organize a coalition of 22 business groups to oppose the 45% increase in truck tolls proposed by the New York State Thruway Authority.
The coalition represents more than 15,000 companies, from farms and grocery stores, to fuel suppliers, lumber mills and manufacturers, the group said in a statement announcing its formation.
If the tolls are increased 45%, a 5-axle truck currently paying a toll of $68.95 to run the length of the Thruway would have to pay $99.98.
“The Thruway Authority has mismanaged their finances for years and to make up for it, they’re asking average consumers to foot the bill through increased transportation costs,” said Kendra Adams, president of the New York State Motor Truck Association.
The toll proposal, unveiled on May 30, was prepared by a consultant advising the authority on how to refinance $868 million in debt and pay for $1.5 billion worth of improvements (6-4, p. 27).
The 570-mile highway runs from the New Jersey state line to Buffalo, N.Y., via Albany and Syracuse, with a portion going south from Buffalo to the Pennsylvania state line. The authority has a “total
disregard” for what the toll increase would do “to consumers, how it will impact communities along alternate routes, and what it will do to the economy of New York,” Adams said.
Such a sudden, steep increase in tolls would not give truckers time to adjust long-term shipping contracts and would have unintended consequences, said Jim Runk, president of the Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association.
“I can imagine, at least, the independent guys are going to try alternate routes,” Runk said.
Michael Riley, president of the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut, called the 45% proposal an outrage.
“It will significantly increase the costs of transportation in the Northeast and consequently the cost of every product that trucks haul,” Riley said. “There is a point where tolls become so high that they force vehicles to reroute onto local non-toll roads.”
Gail E. Toth, executive director of the New Jersey Motor Truck Association, said: “Once again toll payers, especially truckers, will pay the price
of toll facility mismanagement. In the end, all of us will pay for the toll increase at the cash register.”
Among those in the coalition fighting the toll increase are the Empire State Forest Products Association, the New York Association of Convenience Stores, the New York Farm Bureau and the Manufacturers Alliance of New York.
The authority’s board of directors has yet to vote on the toll increase and has scheduled three public hearings in August to take comment on the plan.
The hearings will be: Aug. 16 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library in Buffalo; Aug. 17 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Double Tree by the Hilton Hotel on State Route 298 in East Syracuse; and Aug. 18 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Hilton Garden Inn in Newburgh.
The authority will accept written comments on the proposed toll increases through Aug. 24. The comments can be mailed to Toll Comments, c/o Legal Department, New York State Thruway Authority, 200 Southern Blvd., P.O. Box 189, Albany, NY 12201-0189.
Or public comments can be sent via e-mail to tollcomments@thruway.ny.gov.
