RITBA Spent $5 Million to Collect Sakonnet Tolls

The Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority has spent about $5 million to collect tolls on the Sakonnet River Bridge that will likely be eliminated for good as state lawmakers prepare to put the wraps on the state budget.

The Associated Press reported that a RITBA spokeswoman said it cost between $4.6 million and $5 million to install toll collection devices that read E-ZPass transponders and photograph license plates on the bridge. So far, with a 10-cent placeholder toll lawmakers set up last year after failing to reach a final decision, the authority has collected $677,500. Nearly a quarter million remains uncollected from drivers who do not have transponders.

Tiverton House Rep. John Edwards said the authority jumped the gun when they installed the equipment.

"They shouldn't have," he told the AP.

The details of the state budget are expected Thursday night at a House Finance Committee hearing. In it, tolls on the bridge are eliminated.

It is not clear how there will be no toll nor what's the status of the widely-discussed infrastructure plan proposed by a group of Aquidneck Island legislators that would have dramatically changed the way the state's roads and bridges are funded and maintained.

That bill called for a Transportation Infrastructure Fund as a restricted receipt account within the Rhode Island Intermodal Surface Transportation Fund.

Additionally, ownership of the Sakonnet River and Mount Hope bridges would be transferred to the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (DOT) and the ability to toll those bridges would be revoked.

The bill further required all funds and revenue generated by the establishment of the uninsured motorist identification database be deposited into the Transportation Infrastructure Fund.