During a recent appearance on “The View,” Governor Kathy Hochul of New York took some heat from Whoopi Goldberg over her plan to raise money for public transit and ease traffic congestion by charging drivers a fee for entering Manhattan. When Goldberg asked, “What is the point?” Hochul did not back down. “There’s many reasons why we’re doing this,” the governor said. “This city is immovable. It is. We’re in a crisis where people can walk backward in heels faster than most trucks can get down the streets right now. This city is paralyzed.”
If only Governor Maura Healey could show such fortitude. Just talking theoretically about a controversial plan to raise money for transportation got a Cabinet member a rebuke from the governor. All it took was some criticism from the Boston Herald and a tired line of attack from Republican Governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire about Massachusetts finding another way “to unnecessarily take your money.” Sure, Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt could have chosen her words more carefully when she discussed the possibility of imposing tolls on drivers as they enter the state. And taking on pickup truck drivers, as she also did, is never a good idea, on the road or rhetorically. Still, did Healey have to cave so quickly?
But cave she did. “The Secretary’s comments do not represent the views of this administration, and to be clear, I am not proposing tolls at any border,” Healey said in a statement. “I have spoken to the Secretary and made that clear, and that I have confidence in her leadership moving forward in this important time as we work to ensure a strong and robust state transportation system.”
The controversy over Tibbits-Nutt, first reported by CommonWealth Beacon, revolves around a speech she gave at WalkMassachusetts, a community advocacy group, during which she delivered exactly what she promised — candid talk. For example, she said, “We don’t have enough money, but we’ve never had enough money, we’re probably very rarely going to have enough money for transportation, especially state transportation.” She also said that as head of the special task force that Healey launched in January, she will be looking at ways to “get aggressive” about raising revenue. According to Tibbits-Nutt, those possibilities include increased traffic enforcement via additional ticketing, charging rideshare companies more, and tolls at Massachusetts borders.
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Granted, those are not popular options. But the task force was given the job of “advising the Governor on and making recommendations for a long-term, sustainable transportation finance plan.” One of its specific missions is to consider “how pricing mechanisms may be used to advance transportation and resiliency goals and generate sustainable funding.” Tolls would seem to fall under that general mission.
Lost in the uproar over the toll talk was the larger point raised by Tibbits-Nutt: the need for more revenue. As Bradley Campbell, president and CEO of the Conservation Law Foundation, told me: “None of the options for funding transportation are going to be easy. The governor missed an opportunity to highlight the fact that we need to have hard conversations.”
According to James Aloisi, a former secretary of Transportation and public transit advocate, the state faces serious transportation funding decisions. Aloisi calls the proposed budget and steps taken so far by Healey and the House “a one-year fix designed to give everyone time to solve the longer structural fix.” With T ridership down, a plan is needed to find a stable funding source to replace fare revenues, he said. Meanwhile, Aloisi predicts that as the state transitions to electric vehicles, the gas tax will eventually diminish to zero. So the state needs to start thinking now about what will replace it, he said.
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“The recent blowback regarding border tolls is unfortunate because the right answer is not border tolls but a fair statewide system that might include border tolls,” Aloisi said via email. Considering all options is supposedly why Healey set up that task force. So why shut one down before it can be evaluated?
In New York, Hochul is backing a controversial congestion pricing plan to raise money for public transit and ease traffic snarl-ups by charging drivers a fee for entering certain parts of Manhattan. The highly unpopular plan, which originated under her predecessor, is the target of six lawsuits, including one from the state of New Jersey. A judge could block it before its planned launch on June 30. But for now, it showcases one governor’s willingness to stand up for a larger transportation goal, even if the path to it is politically difficult.
In Massachusetts, the governor shut down talk about a controversial plan to raise money for transportation. But that should not end the hard conversation about what is needed. It should start it.
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Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at joan.vennochi@globe.com. Follow her @joan_vennochi.
