By Eric Anderson
While no one's yet proposing toll gates on the Northway, such user fees could become more common as the Trump administration seeks ways to boost spending on highways, railways and other critical infrastructure.
The $1.5 trillion plan unveiled by President Donald Trump at the beginning of the week includes $200 billion in federal funds, with the rest to come state and local sources, public-private partnerships, and user fees.
The Trump plan has been getting a mixed response.
"It's starting a much-needed national conversation," said Mike Elmendorf, president and CEO of the Associated General Contractors of New York State. "The other positive — there's a lot of good stuff about streamlining regulatory processes for getting shovels in the ground.
"The shortcoming is obviously the money," Elmendorf added. His organization represents the building and heavy highway construction industry.
The administration's spending plan would provide 20 percent of the cost of a project, down from as much as 80 percent previously. Currently, the federal share covers 40 percent of the state's bridge and highway program, a DOT spokesman said Wednesday.
Public-private partnerships might have investors adding toll lanes or building a toll bridge, with the user fees providing a return to those investors.
But a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer said it might be difficult to pursue such partnerships in rural areas of New York state, for example, because demand to use a bridge might not be sufficient to make it an attractive investment.
The Highway Trust Fund has long funded infrastructure investments, but Trump proposed cutting it by $122 billion over 10 years. On Wednesday afternoon, however, the news website Axios reported that Trump endorsed a 25-cent increase in the gas tax that supports the trust fund during a meeting with administration aides and members of Congress The tax was last raised, to 18.4 cents a gallon, in 1993. Then there's the toll on existing interstates. Trump proposed removing federal obstacles to such a move. Unlike a bridge in a rural, sparsely populated section of the state, tolls on a busy highway like the Northway could produce strong revenues, although there'd likely be strong pushback, especially from daily commuters.
New York has some of the nation's oldest infrastructure, Elmendorf said, and its severe winters cause additional deterioration, as anyone who has been dodging potholes in recent days is well aware.
"You can't do this in a real and meaningful way unless you're going to have real and meaningful dollars" to spend, he added. Infrastructure has benefits ranging from job creation — each $1 billion spent creates and supports 28,000 jobs, Elmendorf said — to economic development.
"We'll be going to Washington. We'll be working with the DOT," Elmendorf said. "I hope something gets done."
Bristol Hospital Ambulatory Care Center could open June 2019
Lorenzo Burgio
BRISTOL -- The next steps for the Bristol Hospital Downtown Ambulatory Care Center is to close on the property with the city in the next few weeks, execute the lease agreement with the developer and then commence construction.
“There are very, very few items that we are working through with the city right now,” President & CEO Kurt Barwis said while providing a project update to the City Council on Tuesday. “We have essentially all of the agreements in place.”
Barwis hopes that the new ambulatory care center becomes the springboard for development downtown, and anticipates for construction to commence in late winter or early spring, Barwis explained.
The project is expected to cost between $26 and $30 million by the time it is completed, he noted.
“From beginning to end, the construction schedule is planned to be about 18 months,” Barwis said. “We would occupy the building, provided we get all the approvals to do so, sometime in June of 2019, and we are anxious to occupy that building.”
There will not be a groundbreaking ceremony when construction commences due to the cold weather, Barwis explained. Instead, it will hold a beam signing ceremony later this summer when there is a structure in Centre Square, he added.
“The face of that property is going to change because all of the steel structure will be up [in August]. We will save the last beam and it will be painted white, so that all of those involved can sign that beam,” he said. “Then we will have that beam lifted into place and secured, and that will mark the celebration of the project.”
Barwis recalled the long process for the project to come to this point.
“The first time I stood here in this spot was in 2016, and a lot has happened since then,” he said. “And it wouldn’t have happened without the support of the City Council, the mayor and many others, including the legal team here in the city.”
“I’ve been here 11 almost 11 and a half years, and true access to capital to do something with has been really lucid for us,” he continued. “We are really fortunate to have found a developer to actually finance the project and work through the project with us.”
“We wouldn’t have that without the tremendous support of this community, tremendous support of the leadership and hospital board, and really engaged people representing the city, engaging with the developer, and really bringing someone in to make this happen,” he added.
Speaker: Legislature should turn transportation over to a new authority
KEITH M. PHANEUF | CT MIRROR
After failing for years to properly invest in highways, rail and bridges, the legislature should relinquish oversight to a transportation authority immune from the pressure of election-year politics, House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz said Wednesday.
Speaking at the Connecticut Council of Small Towns' annual legislative forum, the Berlin Democrat also renewed his proposal to eliminate local taxes on motor vehicles. But given that Aresimowicz also said pressures on state finances probably would continue to squeeze municipal aid, eliminating vehicle taxes probably would lead cities and towns to recoup the lost revenue through higher property taxes on households and businesses.
Both of the speaker's proposals sparked criticisms from Republican lawmakers at the forum, decreasing the likelihood either would win passage during the 2018 General Assembly session.
"Many of our current bridges and roads are failing, and we have to turn that trend around," the speaker told an audience of about 275 leaders of small and mid-sized towns gathered at the Aqua Turf in Southington. "Try to drive to New York some time."
Warning leaders not to underestimate the frustration that Connecticut's aging, congested transportation network creates among companies looking to locate or expand here, Aresimowicz said needed investments have been stalled for years by legislatures and governors fearful of repercussions among voters.
"Nobody wants to do tolls; nobody wants to raise gas taxes," the speaker told reporters afterward.
But things aren't that simple.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy warned Wall Street investors, the business community and the legislature earlier this winter that Connecticut's transportation program is on the brink of a crisis.
Absent more funding, the state would need to scrap some rail services, drive up fares, suspend 40 percent of planned capital projects, including major highway rebuilds like the Hartford viaduct, to remain solvent over the next five years, the administration says.
The governor asked legislators this month to add seven cents to Connecticut's 25-cents-per-gallon retail gasoline tax, and to order electronic tolling on highways. The latter, if approved, probably would not yield major revenue until the 2021-22 fiscal year, the administration says.
Aresimowicz recommended legislators create an authority to make major transportation policy decisions, with powers similar to those granted to the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to handle energy-related matters.
But House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, called the speaker's proposal an abdication of power.
When it comes to decisions about tolls, fuel taxes and major capital projects, "The only people, in my opinion, who should be making those decisions are the people you elect to do this job," the minority leader said.
Sen. Kevin Witkos of Canton, the second-highest ranking GOP senator, said the transportation fund is in tough fiscal straits because the Malloy administration accelerated transportation projects in recent years without a plan to cover the cost.
Though Democrats have been divided on the governor's proposals for tolls and a fuel tax hike, GOP lawmakers have been almost unanimous in their opposition to both.
Klarides said her party doesn't lack courage to deal with transportation. "We don't support (the governor's plan) on its face, she said, calling it little more than a "revenue grab" to support overall state spending that continues to rise.
Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, Senate Democratic chair of the Appropriations Committee, noted that the retail gasoline tax, which stood at 39 cents per gallon in 1997, was shortly thereafter reduced in two phases to 25 cents — and has remained there.
"I don't know anything else that stayed at the same funding level" for more than two decades, she said.
Aresimowicz offered a potential compromise, suggesting a transportation authority be established, but that the legislature reserve the right to overrule its decisions with a two-thirds vote.
"If we (legislators) were the appropriate body to handle this, our transportation system would be funded," he said afterward.
The speaker also recommended Wednesday that Connecticut eliminate property taxes on motor vehicles.
Aresimowicz said it is a "nuisance" for cities and towns to collect and is grossly unfair. The same car in the same condition could be taxed at grossly disparate rates depending on the city or town in which it is housed, he said.
"It is totally unfair," Aresimowicz added. "It makes no sense."
House and Senate Democrats also said last fall that they wanted to eliminate the motor vehicle tax. But because the state budget is expected to be burdened by rapidly increasing retirement benefit costs for the next 15 years or longer, leaders also had no plan to replace the $700 million to $800 million the vehicle tax provides annually to cities and towns.
The Council of Small Towns and the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities both criticized that proposal, saying it would only shift burdens onto a residential and commercial property tax base that already is overtaxed.
Klarides said afterward that while the motor vehicle tax is inequitable, shifting more costs to home and business owners isn't the best solution either. "Nobody is really gaining anything," she said.
Barwis hopes that the new ambulatory care center becomes the springboard for development downtown, and anticipates for construction to commence in late winter or early spring, Barwis explained.
The project is expected to cost between $26 and $30 million by the time it is completed, he noted.
“From beginning to end, the construction schedule is planned to be about 18 months,” Barwis said. “We would occupy the building, provided we get all the approvals to do so, sometime in June of 2019, and we are anxious to occupy that building.”
There will not be a groundbreaking ceremony when construction commences due to the cold weather, Barwis explained. Instead, it will hold a beam signing ceremony later this summer when there is a structure in Centre Square, he added.
“The face of that property is going to change because all of the steel structure will be up [in August]. We will save the last beam and it will be painted white, so that all of those involved can sign that beam,” he said. “Then we will have that beam lifted into place and secured, and that will mark the celebration of the project.”
Barwis recalled the long process for the project to come to this point.
“The first time I stood here in this spot was in 2016, and a lot has happened since then,” he said. “And it wouldn’t have happened without the support of the City Council, the mayor and many others, including the legal team here in the city.”
“I’ve been here 11 almost 11 and a half years, and true access to capital to do something with has been really lucid for us,” he continued. “We are really fortunate to have found a developer to actually finance the project and work through the project with us.”
“We wouldn’t have that without the tremendous support of this community, tremendous support of the leadership and hospital board, and really engaged people representing the city, engaging with the developer, and really bringing someone in to make this happen,” he added.
Speaker: Legislature should turn transportation over to a new authority
KEITH M. PHANEUF | CT MIRROR
After failing for years to properly invest in highways, rail and bridges, the legislature should relinquish oversight to a transportation authority immune from the pressure of election-year politics, House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz said Wednesday.
Speaking at the Connecticut Council of Small Towns' annual legislative forum, the Berlin Democrat also renewed his proposal to eliminate local taxes on motor vehicles. But given that Aresimowicz also said pressures on state finances probably would continue to squeeze municipal aid, eliminating vehicle taxes probably would lead cities and towns to recoup the lost revenue through higher property taxes on households and businesses.
Both of the speaker's proposals sparked criticisms from Republican lawmakers at the forum, decreasing the likelihood either would win passage during the 2018 General Assembly session.
"Many of our current bridges and roads are failing, and we have to turn that trend around," the speaker told an audience of about 275 leaders of small and mid-sized towns gathered at the Aqua Turf in Southington. "Try to drive to New York some time."
Warning leaders not to underestimate the frustration that Connecticut's aging, congested transportation network creates among companies looking to locate or expand here, Aresimowicz said needed investments have been stalled for years by legislatures and governors fearful of repercussions among voters.
"Nobody wants to do tolls; nobody wants to raise gas taxes," the speaker told reporters afterward.
But things aren't that simple.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy warned Wall Street investors, the business community and the legislature earlier this winter that Connecticut's transportation program is on the brink of a crisis.
Absent more funding, the state would need to scrap some rail services, drive up fares, suspend 40 percent of planned capital projects, including major highway rebuilds like the Hartford viaduct, to remain solvent over the next five years, the administration says.
The governor asked legislators this month to add seven cents to Connecticut's 25-cents-per-gallon retail gasoline tax, and to order electronic tolling on highways. The latter, if approved, probably would not yield major revenue until the 2021-22 fiscal year, the administration says.
Aresimowicz recommended legislators create an authority to make major transportation policy decisions, with powers similar to those granted to the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to handle energy-related matters.
But House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, called the speaker's proposal an abdication of power.
When it comes to decisions about tolls, fuel taxes and major capital projects, "The only people, in my opinion, who should be making those decisions are the people you elect to do this job," the minority leader said.
Sen. Kevin Witkos of Canton, the second-highest ranking GOP senator, said the transportation fund is in tough fiscal straits because the Malloy administration accelerated transportation projects in recent years without a plan to cover the cost.
Though Democrats have been divided on the governor's proposals for tolls and a fuel tax hike, GOP lawmakers have been almost unanimous in their opposition to both.
Klarides said her party doesn't lack courage to deal with transportation. "We don't support (the governor's plan) on its face, she said, calling it little more than a "revenue grab" to support overall state spending that continues to rise.
Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, Senate Democratic chair of the Appropriations Committee, noted that the retail gasoline tax, which stood at 39 cents per gallon in 1997, was shortly thereafter reduced in two phases to 25 cents — and has remained there.
"I don't know anything else that stayed at the same funding level" for more than two decades, she said.
Aresimowicz offered a potential compromise, suggesting a transportation authority be established, but that the legislature reserve the right to overrule its decisions with a two-thirds vote.
"If we (legislators) were the appropriate body to handle this, our transportation system would be funded," he said afterward.
The speaker also recommended Wednesday that Connecticut eliminate property taxes on motor vehicles.
Aresimowicz said it is a "nuisance" for cities and towns to collect and is grossly unfair. The same car in the same condition could be taxed at grossly disparate rates depending on the city or town in which it is housed, he said.
"It is totally unfair," Aresimowicz added. "It makes no sense."
House and Senate Democrats also said last fall that they wanted to eliminate the motor vehicle tax. But because the state budget is expected to be burdened by rapidly increasing retirement benefit costs for the next 15 years or longer, leaders also had no plan to replace the $700 million to $800 million the vehicle tax provides annually to cities and towns.
The Council of Small Towns and the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities both criticized that proposal, saying it would only shift burdens onto a residential and commercial property tax base that already is overtaxed.
Klarides said afterward that while the motor vehicle tax is inequitable, shifting more costs to home and business owners isn't the best solution either. "Nobody is really gaining anything," she said.