LETTERS

There’s a better way than truck tolls

Posted 1/28/16

To the Editor:

I had a rough night last night. My furnace was not working and I had to call someone to fix it. It cost me more than $200 just to have the person show up, money I didn’t have in …

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LETTERS

There’s a better way than truck tolls

Posted

To the Editor:

I had a rough night last night. My furnace was not working and I had to call someone to fix it. It cost me more than $200 just to have the person show up, money I didn’t have in my budget. My biggest problem, though, is there are not enough trucks going up and down my street for me to impose a toll on them to pay this bill. 

The legislature and executive offices of the State of Rhode Island are sure they are going to be able to add tolls to the state revenue. Here’s how it will work. Step 1. “We will only tax commercial vehicles.” Step 2. The state will spend millions of dollars for studies and equipment to be able to bill for tolls. See the Sakonnet River Bridge history in case you think this is a fairy tale. Step 3. Commercial vehicles will avoid these entrapments like the plague. Step 4. The state of Rhode Island will say, “Oh dear. We already invested millions. We aren’t collecting enough. We’ll just have to ‘sacrifice’ and implement tolls for everyone.” Step 5. Trucks will still avoid the entrapments and you and I will allow the further mismanagement of state funds that continues to be the primary operational methodology for Rhode Island.

How might this be done differently? Well, perhaps we can use the financial model that Walmart has just demonstrated. Walmart wants to take a different tact than they have been using. To do this, and because they are in the same situation I find myself of not being able to tax trucks, they have to close some operations to pay for the new functions they want. Oddly enough, the stores they picked to close were the “toll” stores. Sam’s Club imposed tolls. They called them memberships and the theory was the membership would eventually be recovered in savings. I tried it. For me, and most former Sam’s Club members I know, it was not true. Having worked in Bentonville for a while on an IT contract for Walmart, I can assure you that the Sam’s Clubs being closed were making money and meeting income goals. Walmart is not a charity. If you are not making money, you’re gone.

The important point here is there are other ways to fund what the state needs to do.

Why does the state not have the money? Because there are no controls imposed by the voters of the State of Rhode Island limiting the expenditure of money. Now, I cannot say that the executives in charge of corporations are any better at controlling themselves and their budgets than legislators, but they do have two facets the state doesn’t have, or more correctly, will not legally allow. First, corporations, ones as big as Rhode Island, have investors. We all are investors in the state of Rhode Island but the few people we elect would rather not be accountable to us since we probably wouldn’t allow them to misuse our “investments”. The second is that our taxes are not thought of as investments. The State of Rhode Island doesn’t think we have any say in what happens to the money we pay into a government that essentially belongs to the people of Rhode Island and not the few elected “rulers.”

The money for repairing Rhode Island’s infrastructure has always been there. What’s happened is that Rhode Island has spent that money in other areas. Why? We elected them despite their demonstrated inability to serve their people. We let them.

Do trucks destroy our roads? You bet. Know why? Virtually every state has the ability to stop and inspect every truck on the road. Interstates are required to have inspection points. The problem is, and always has been, that the state has to populate these inspection points and actually do inspections. Said another way, the state has to pay someone to do this job. There are scales at these stops specifically to stop the excessive weight and resulting wear on roads. As far as I can see, there is one state trooper that stops and inspects trucks and he doesn’t get to stop these trucks at weigh stations. Once again, the mismanagement of funds by the few has a significant and debilitating effect on our roads.

All government works only by the consent of the governed. If you consent to this, you will end up paying the bill. Frankly, I am mad enough about this to consider joining a recall movement. Not only would I recall our governor, but also I’d recall most of the legislature.

Do I want the roads and bridges fixed? Yes. Do I think you and I already paid to have this done and my representatives have not done what was needed? Yes. Do I think the state can do something different then add a new type of tax? I am very sure they can. Would people be laid off in government offices and functions? Yes. If they are competent workers, they can get jobs in the private sector. If they are not, why are they being paid at all? The addition of we the people’s permission to toll only allows the further misuse of funds and the misuse of tolls.

I have to pay my furnace bill out of what I have. The state has to do the same. There are limits within which everyone has to live.

 Note: I have a valid Class A Commercial Driver’s License, but I do not currently drive a commercial vehicle. My primary job was IT.

Doug Ray

Warwick

Comments

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  • Ken B

    Tolling is not needed to repair Rhode Island’s bridges and roads. Rhode Island should fund the repair of its bridges and roads by reducing its tax on gasoline and diesel fuel to 20 cents per gallon. Many vehicles that now pass through RI would stop and buy their fuel in RI because RI would have the lowest fuel prices in New England. Local truck stops and gas stations, located near Interstate highway ramps, would expand and improve their facilities to attract customers. Employment at RI’s fueling stations would increase. The number of gallons of fuel sold in RI each year would more than double. Last year, 439 million gallons of fuel was sold in Rhode Island which produced $140.6 million in fuel taxes. 878 million gallons at 20 cents per gallon would produce $176 million in fuel taxes which is more than enough to repair Rhode Island’s roads and bridges.

    Thursday, January 28, 2016 Report this

  • bendover

    Mr. Ray, could we get Queen Raimondo to hire you as the new IT wonk for the State, say at 100K a year. We would hire someone who already lives here, We would not be raiding RIC in an outrageous money grab, and we would save taxpayers $110K a year rather than paying some carpetbagger, who will likely spend half his time outside RI...Can we demand they look at that? Probably not, on Smith Hill that might make sense and save money, a totally foreign concept.

    Friday, January 29, 2016 Report this

  • latitude41

    I hate hearing " Rhode Island doesn't spend enough on infrastructure" which has become a familiar cry. In fact Rhode Island has been spending plenty in recent years but totally inefficiently. Cost overruns, design errors, substandard construction lawsuits and mismanagement have gobbled up millions from our budget and bonds. In addition, the nation's smallest state needs two separate road authorities, RITBA and RIDOT to earn us the honor of "nation's worst bridges and roads" . Without some fundamental changes in the way the state manages things, Rhode Island has no business approving a transportation bond or setting up tolls to hand over the money to be squandered as the state has been doing over the years. The gentleman's editorial is very wisely written.

    Sunday, January 31, 2016 Report this

  • HerbTokerman

    If RI wants to improve their roads and bridges they should stop using Cardi and D'Ambra for road construction.

    They both seemingly manage to land all of the DOT contracts and they do shoddy work.

    There's no doubt those firms are bribing the DOT both to land contracts and look the other way in terms of quality checking.

    After all, why do quality construction that will last when you can keep winning bids to re-do the same work repeatedly?

    There is no need to toll, the state has plenty of money they just don't spend it properly.

    In an almost 9 billion (9000 million) dollar annual budget they can't come up with 100 million a year to fix roads without tolling?

    Sunday, January 31, 2016 Report this