For state Rep. Teresa Tanzi, the resumption of Rhode Island’s controversial program charging trucks a toll to use certain highways can’t come soon enough
“I just cannot comprehend how it’s taken so long to have a revenue-producing thing up and running,” Tanzi, a South Kingstown Democrat, said during a legislative hearing at the Statehouse last month.
She lamented how the state has lost tens of millions of dollars in possible revenue since a legal challenge halted the truck tolling program in 2022.
“Every time I drive under one of those gantries,” Tanzi said, “it’s dollars we’re not bringing in that we could desperately use for the Washington Bridge or other things.”
The truck toll program became law in 2016 as part of former Gov. Gina Raimondo’s RhodeWorks initiative to upgrade the state’s crumbling roads and bridges.
The American Trucking Associations went to court to stop it. A federal appeals court ultimately ruled that truck tolls were legal under the Constitution, but that a discount to cut the cost for in-state businesses was not.
Now, the state is poised to start once again charging trucks a surcharge in early 2027. Officials estimate the tolls will bring in at least $38 million a year.
But the state has spent a lot to stand up the truck tolls and it’s committed to spending a lot more through 2029 – a total of about $101 million, according to the state Department of Transportation. The tolls raised about $96.2 million for state coffers while they were in effect from 2018 to 2022.
That the state is obligated to pay more to set up the tolls than the tolls have actually brought in was first reported on the conservative website Anchor Rising by Monique Chartier, who works for truck tolls opponent the Rhode Island Trucking Association.
The state’s costs include the need to update the dozen or so pillars, called gantries, around the state that hold the technology to charge trucks.
“We have to replace a lot of the equipment,” acting Rhode Island Department of Transportation Director Robert Rocchio said during a legislative committee meeting last month. “It’s been sitting idle. This equipment doesn’t last for many, many years. It’s already been in the field for 10 years.”
“It’s past its life cycle, so we’re replacing the equipment,” Rocchio added. “There’s a one-time cost for that.”
The one-time cost to replace or upgrade equipment is $19 million. And there’s an additional potential cost of about $10 million, since, Rocchio said, “We’re out for RFP for the ‘back office (programs).’ It’s the computing, the billing, all that.”
The state has also spent millions on lawyers to defend the truck tolling program in court.
If revenue projections for resuming truck tolls are correct, the balance sheet for the program will look better in a year or so. But critics, including Ocean State Job Lot CEO Marc Perlman – whose North Kingstown-based company operates about 170 stores in 11 states – warn of hidden costs.
“Most people might observe that there’s no other state in the United States that has embraced our model,” Perlman said in an interview. “So what does that tell you?”
Perlman said tolling only trucks is discriminatory and will raise costs that will go on to consumers. The sting will be worse, Perlman said, since former Gov. Raimondo’s discount to limit costs for in-state companies was thrown out in court.
“The truck toll plan that was put into effect by Gov. Raimondo is no longer her plan,” he said. “Her plan was not to harm Rhode Island businesses. This is now the Governor McKee plan. He owns this plan.”
Perlman says it’s especially unfair to tax Job Lot on its philanthropy, like the trucking involved in donating 80,000 coats to homeless veterans, as the company did last year. And he sees the influence of special interest politics as the reason cement mixers and dump trucks are exempt from truck tolls.
Ocean State Media offered Gov. Dan McKee an opportunity to respond, but his office denied multiple requests for interviews. Acting RIDOT Director Robert Rocchio also declined to talk for this story.
RIDOT spokesman Charles St. Martin repeatedly communicated with McKee’s communications director, Andrea Palagi, about avoiding our interview requests, according to emails Ocean State Media obtained via a public records request.
One person willing to talk, House Speaker Joe Shekarchi, said he was surprised to learn that the truck-tolling program has not been more of a revenue-generator for the state.
“I was always under the impression from the information I received from (former RIDOT) Director (Peter) Alviti that the program was successful, it was generating money, far more than it cost us to operate,” Shekarchi said in an interview.
Shekarchi noted the discount for in-state truckers would still be in place if the industry had not challenged the tolling program in court.
“Nobody likes to pay a fee or a toll,” he said, “but we have to operate a government and we’ve had the worst roads and bridges in the country, and we’re starting to make headway. And infrastructure is very important to retain old business and recruit new business to Rhode Island.”
Most Rhode Islanders won’t notice if tolling resumes as planned in early 2027. The question is whether the program will affect their pocketbooks in less obvious ways.
