Final Effort to Remove Toll Booth This Session Flops

Senate President Peter Bragdon, R-Milford, made one last effort to get Merrimack's toll booth at Exit 12 removed during this legislative session, on Wednesday, but once again, it failed, according to a story in the Nashua Telegraph.

According to the article, Bragdon attempted to attach the toll removal language to an unrelated bill that would give a legislative committee oversight in the matter of the sale of the former Laconia State School property. He also made himself a member of the committee and appointed himself chairman.

According to Sen. Jim Rausch, R-Derry, Bragdon, who was not present during the discussion of the bill Wednesday, would not sign off on it without the amended language to include the tolls, and the bill was dropped.

Last month, SB 3, a bill to remove the Exit 12 toll that made it through the Senate was locked up in committee until next session when it can be reviewed as part of an overall highways and turnpikes overhaul.

Rep. David Campbell, R-Nashua, the chairman of the House Public Works and Highways committee, said at the time that by retaining the bill, the committee has to take some sort of action on it in 2014.

Campbell said he is in favor of the idea of a commuter discount for residents who frequently use the toll booths, but his committee will be seriously addressing the highways and turnpike systems later this year and Merrimack's tolls will be part of that discussion.

“(Turnpike) Widening needs to be addressed, the tolls need to be addressed,” Campbell said. “We can't look at things one step at a time, we need to look at them all at once.”

Rep. Dick Barry, R-Merrimack, said in May that while he wants to see the tolls removed as much as anyone else in town, the move made to hold onto the toll bill was the right one.

Had the issue been forced, it was likely the bill  would have been deemed inexpedient to legislate and dropped all together.

“The concept is there is real work that needs to be done on the 10 year highway plan,” Barry said, and ultimately, this toll booth – and the other two in Merrimack – is part of it.

Had the Exit 12 toll booth been eliminated, the state would have taken about a half-million dollar loss in  revenue from that booth, but legislators argued that it would be offset by the extra $900,000 a year coming in at Exit 10 where the Merrimack Premium Outlets opened about a year ago.