Resuming truck tolls will cost Rhode Island $30 million

Rhode Island’s efforts to resume collecting truck-only tolls have hit another stumbling block.

State officials had expected the tolls, which have been inactive since a 2022 court ruling found them unconstitutional, to resume in the first half of 2026. However, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation says the state will need roughly $30 million in updates to the current billing system and gantries before the tolls can be reinstated.

During an annual budget hearing before the state’s House Committee on Finance Subcommittee on Environment and Transportation, RIDOT Interim Director Robert Rocchio said the current equipment is past its life cycle and needs to be rebuilt.

Those updates, according to Rocchio, will cost the state an estimated $19 million. In addition to the outdated equipment, Rocchio said there is a need for a new back-office system to manage toll transactions, which is expected to cost nearly $10 million.

For now, RIDOT expects the gantries to be operational by March 2027, but said that timeline depends on how long it takes to install the new gantries and to put the new collection system in place.

The state estimates that the tolls will generate around $40 million annually once they are turned back on.

Rep. Teresa Tanzi, D-South Kingstown, said the state’s failure to reactivate the tolls has been “mind-boggling.”

“I cannot comprehend how it’s taken so long to have this revenue-producing thing up and running,” Tanzi said. “To not have this up and running is like nails on a chalkboard every time I drive under one of those gantries.”

State officials had expected the tolls would resume in the first half of 2026. However, when Gov. Dan McKee released the 2027 fiscal budget in January, it was clear that the timeline would not be met.

During a recent interview, McKee admitted it had been frustrating to see the process take this long, but was confident the tolls would resume in the near future.

“Those pieces of equipment have not been used for years, and they’re going to have to be replaced,” McKee told WPRI. “We’ll see what the ultimate cost is – I haven’t heard the final figure – but it’s going to make sense for us to figure out a way to make sure we’re putting the tolls in place so it can continue on the infrastructure improvements, which we’re making significant progress on in the state.”

Rhode Island’s effort to implement truck-only tolls has faced a complicated path.

The state introduced tolls on commercial trucks in 2018 to help pay for bridge repairs and other infrastructure projects. But in September 2022, a U.S. District Court struck down the program, ruling it unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause, which bars states from imposing charges with the intent to discriminate in favor of domestic entities and against out-of-state or interstate entities.

Rhode Island challenged that decision, and in December 2024, a federal appeals court reversed the earlier ruling. The court found that the tolling system did not meet the legal standard for a Commerce Clause violation, noting that there wasn’t sufficient evidence that out-of-state truckers were placed at a “significant” disadvantage. The decision cleared the way for the state to restart truck tolling, with adjustments.

The appeals court did take issue with one part of the program: daily toll caps. It determined that those caps unfairly favored local trucking companies and were therefore unconstitutional.

Despite pushback from local trucking groups, state officials have said that when tolling resumes, the updated system will apply equally to both in-state and out-of-state carriers. LL