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Fairfield Letter: Congestion Pricing OK, But Say No To Tolls

FAIRFIELD, Conn. -- The Fairfield Daily Voice accepts signed letters to the editor. Please send letters to fairfield@dailyvoice.com. 

To the Editor:

"States and local jurisdictions are increasingly discussing congestion pricing as a strategy for improving transportation system performance. In fact, many transportation experts believe that congestion pricing offers promising opportunities to cost-effectively reduce traffic congestion, improve the reliability of highway system performance, and improve the quality of life for residents, many of whom are experiencing intolerable traffic congestion in regions across the country."

So says the Federal Highway Administration in its publication, "Congestion Pricing: A Primer on Institutional Issues," when describing the purpose of its well-done technical document.

Just don't count CT among the enlightened. It did not take long for the governor, state legislators, local reporters and editors to muddle the conversation on fixing our transportation woes here in CT.

Now they all talk simply about restoring the 50-year-old CT Turnpike tolls as a way for paying for their latest pie-in-the-sky transportation ideas. That is a non-starter.

First and foremost congestion pricing is a technical solution, which should be on the top of every-body's list to mitigate congestion, encouraged by the FHWA with carrot and stick funding. It takes just a little studying and analysis to understand that. Congestion pricing, charged largely by electronic tolling these days, is a way to avoid the high capital cost, if not impossible capital cost, of widening all of CT's interstate highways to reduce congestion as the governor now says he will do.

It takes a little out-of-the-box critical thinking to understand that cost avoidance should take precedence over cost, but not that much. Congestion pricing is the way to solve the problem without costing us billions upon billions over decades, while ripping up the landscape in the process, as the big spending governor now says he wants to do.

Some committee recently decided the governor and state legislators do not make enough money for the jobs they do. And the local press barely scratches the surface on an issue anymore. From my perspective it looks like we are getting exactly what we pay for - junk government and superficial reporting by the fourth estate.

Congestion pricing, yes. Tolls alone, NO

Jim Brown

Fairfield

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