Bob McCarthy highlights the Buffalo toll increase meeting.

Motorists want toll-hike plan to take the next Thruway exit

Republicans who sponsored the public hearing Wednesday on proposed Thruway toll hikes are the first to admit that, as minority assemblymen, they can’t do much about the plan.

But the session in the Mahoney State Office Building still presented a wide spectrum of the community a chance to spout off against the idea, giving voice to everyone from truckers and opponents of tolls on the Grand Island bridges to those seeking to check the power of unelected authorities.

“While ultimately the trustees of the Thruway Authority will decide this,” Assemblyman James Hayes of Williamsville said, “we believe that focusing public attention in advance of that decision can have some impact.”

Yet a Thruway Authority board member spoke and said he believes a toll increase is necessary “at this time,” absent any radical departures in current operations. The authority is expected to consider the proposal at its meeting on Dec. 19.

“I don’t think anyone wants to vote for an increase,” said board member Jeffrey Williams of Niagara County, “but I believe we have a responsibility to make sure the revenue exists.”

He is the first Thruway board member to publicly offer an opinion, and the office of Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer, in advance of his visit to Buffalo today, added its own spin to the situation by releasing the concerns of a top transportation adviser.

Timothy J. Gilchrist, Spitzer’s deputy secretary of economic development and infrastructure, said in a letter to Thruway Executive Director Michael Fleischer that the governor cannot endorse the toll hike without answers to some questions. They include: what the Thruway is doing to control costs, whether it has expanded its capital improvement program, and what actions are under consideration to minimize impacts on average motorists.

“The proposed toll increases must be fully justified prior to asking the users of the system to accept them,” Gilchrist wrote, “much less endure a series of increases over the next three years.”

Opponents of the plan to increase tolls by 10 percent in 2008 lined up at the hearing to lambaste increasing revenue without considering any cut in expenses. That included several calls for the authority to divest itself of its costly Erie Canal operation, which at $75 million to $80 million in annual costs approximately equals the deficit facing the Thruway.

“Since 1992, the Thruway has diverted about $1 billion in toll revenue to non-Thruway projects, primarily the canal system,” said Wally Smith, vice president of the AAA of Western and Central New York. “We support former Gov. George Pataki’s plan to create an independent canal system that would allow the Thruway to concentrate on its core mission. We now urge the Legislature and the governor to consider the same plan.”

Several of the Assembly Republicans conducting the hearing — Hayes, Jack F. Quinn III of Hamburg, Joseph Giglio of Gowanda and Michael Cole of Alden — referred to the 1992 transfer of the waterway to the Thruway as “fiscal gimmickry.” And speaker after speaker said the expense of the canal should be redirected to the state’s general budget.

A Thruway audit slated for later this month by State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli is expected to answer several questions about Thruway management, but Williams said Wednesday he does not expect it to reveal any major problems — despite recent reports in The Buffalo News about free passes for Thruway employees and other perks that he said make “great headlines.”

“I think the comptroller’s report will show we run a pretty decent operation,” he said.

Williams added that the road faces a deficit due to higher fuel costs and a corresponding decrease in traffic, as well as from devastating Mohawk Valley floods along the canal last year.

“Just as the state has to deal with looming deficits [stemming from Wall Street reverses], we’re going through the same process,” he said.

Erie County Clerk Kathleen C. Hochul said the toll-hike proposal has “really touched a nerve” among area motorists. She called it “unconscionable” that the Thruway Authority is simply raising tolls to deal with its fiscal problem and that the move unfairly targets Western New York motorists.

“More people are impacted by this increase than in any other part of the state,” she said.

Hochul also asked why Blasdell residents have to subsidize a canal system for wealthy boaters, questioned the idea of Thruway tolls, and complained that increased tolls combined with high property taxes create a “double whammy” for Erie County residents.

Several speakers said the authority must examine its own operation to determine if savings in spending are possible before toll hikes are enacted.

“I’m hopeful there will be arrows pointing to waste, fraud and abuse,” Hayes said. “You know it and I know it’s there, but we need to put our fingers on it.

“In order to bring down costs you have to cut spending,” he added.

rmccarthy@buffnews.com

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