In place only a week, the EZ-Pass program is already far outstripping anticipated costs. The growing outlay is one reason the state's top transportation official has suspended all scheduled turnpike maintenance.
The lengthy public sparring between the legislature and the governor over ez-pass has surely not hurt enrolment. In testimony before the legislature's fiscal committee Transportation Commissioner Carol Murray said since mid-June the state has sold more than 100,000 ez-pass transponders. That's about three times more than anticipated…..and for each one, the state must pay about five dollars a month in administrative costs…..That burden, says Murray, forced some hard choices.
"Base on our estimates and the treasurers long-term we're ok, but the next year we're on the edge………And stopping all renewal and replacement projects, and stopping the capital program was not something we've done lightly….but the next year is scary."
Murray's assessment was shared by members of the fiscal committee. Some questioned what effect this would have on the state's highway bonds rating…..and the committee as a whole voted unanimously to audit the ez-pass program to get a better grip on likely use patterns…..
"If she ends up with 160,000 accounts we could end up with that times 5 dollars…..that equals 800,000 dollars a month."
Chuck Morse is Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. He says the quickest way to slow the growth of the state's ez-pass outlay is to sell the transponders at cost, speed the elimination of the more deeply discounted tokens. He says it's also worth considering increasing the cost for those who have transponders but rarely travel through tollbooths.
"Think about what we're trying to solve here…It's a turnpike system. It was set up so that the users pay…..So basically why would you want everybody outside the users to have transponders……The infrequent user is not the person you want to help here. You have a user-based system that you brought in all kinds of infrequent users here -- big mistake."
At this point, however, nobody knows for certain exactly who how often those who bought transponders use the turnpike. The Governor's office insists fears that out-of-staters are snatching up discounted transponders leaving New Hampshire to hold the bag are ill-founded……
"The fact that so many of our citizens have enrolled in ez-pass ahould be a cause for celebration."
That's Lynch spokesperson Pam Walsh.
"You know we spent a lot of money on this system and it's discouraging that Republican leadership is unhappy that people are signing up to use it. It's also of great concern that after raising the cost of transponders and eliminated the token discount that Republican leadership is talking about adding a new fee to ez-pass."
More data about Ez-pass use should become available in the coming months. In the meantime, expect the political battle over ez-pass to continue. Transponder costs will raise from 5 to 27 dollars on August 3rd.
