Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Toll Hikes On Hold After Pike Reserve Fund Found

By

For Your Information!!

State officials tell WBZ’s Jon Keller we’re getting a temporary reprieve.

The governor and top legislative leaders are expected to tap millions of dollars from a Turnpike Authority reserve fund to stave off the toll increases on the pike and harbor tunnels that were set to take effect on March 29th.

WBZ has learned state leaders only learned of this reserve fund Wednesday night.

There is another toll hike scheduled for July, but state leaders say they’ll use the breathing room provided by today’s action to seek savings and other revenue sources.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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Comments

  1. You are unlikely to know that the practice in these parts is to post just once a day and to comment many times a day. This is your third post.

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    p>Please, slow down! 🙂

      • First, I’m reporting the practice, not the rule.

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        p>Second, if I made 12 posts, the list of posts in the left column would be all KBusch. If you wanted to find something interesting Sabutai posted you’d be plum out of luck.

        <

        p>So there’s something about sharing the space.

    • Read them here.

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      p>But there is no limit to the number of posts. Of course, people may just ignore you if you write repetitive or silly things, which is pointless.

      <

      p>Please link to sources that you cite.

      <

      p>Welcome to BMG.

  3. (© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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    p>

    people may just ignore you if you write repetitive or silly things, which is pointless.

    <

    p>The fact is what is pointless or silly to you may not for other people!!!

    <

    p>Just Calm down and Carry on with you day!

  4. Hopefully this will give us some time to work on a more comprehensive revenue solution than merely a gas or sales tax.  I would like to see a combination of taxes that addresses the long term revenue needs of the transportation system.  We need to have more communities contributing to the Big Dig debt and other transportation needs rather than just focusing on tolls for North Shore residents.

  5. The Turnpike reserve fund has been publicly disclosed, on a regular basis, as part of the financials around the issuance of the bonds at the Authority. It was once in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but given the deteriorating financial situation at the Turnpike, it has been reduced to a little over $50 million.  The reserve fund is one of the things the rating agencies look at when they rate Turnpike bonds, and the fact that it has gotten so low in recent years has been a cause of concern for the agencies and a drag on the bond rating.  But the fact is, it is and has been publicly disclosed over the years, so it is not something that is recently discovered.  In fact, we sent Jon Keller this same information as soon as we saw his blog post online, so it is my hope that it will be corrected in future reports on WBZ.

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