Published: July 01, 2009 10:31 pm      

Like Rich Rod leaving, toll increase spurs bad feelings

CHARLESTON — Rich Rodriguez left a sour taste in many a faithful Mountaineer mouth when he departed the majestic hills for the greener pastures of Michigan.

Fetching that unpleasant memory, Delegate John Shott, R-Mercer, used the former WVU football coach as an analogy to the higher tolls coming on line Aug. 1 on the West Virginia Turnpike.

Two facts surrounding Rodriguez are synonymous with the state Parkways Authority’s move to raise the road’s tolls, Shott told the board.

First, he said, Rodriguez had promised to stay at the helm until the end of his coaching career, and “that was the big lie.”

“The second part is the most unforgivable,” he said.

“We’re used to being overlooked by outsiders. It really hurts when one of our own does it to us.”

Thus, the delegate said, southern West Virginians were given “the big lie” that tolls would vanish once the original bonds were paid off.

“The second part is ... who’s doing it to us?” he asked.

“Our own West Virginians. It’s not the federal government. It’s not someone else. It’s our own West Virginians that are sticking it to us every time we have to pay those tolls.”

Shott said the Legislature is willing to work with the turnpike’s governing board, but “if you’re not interested, we’re going to do what we have to do to fix the problem.”

Afterward, Senate Minority Leader Don Caruth, R-Mercer, insisted there was no need to charge any tolls — period.

Caruth maintained the state should have used some of its federal stimulus package and the $10 million or so it has drawn down in recent years as its share of the federal interstate formula to cover debt service on outstanding bonds and fix the turnpike.

Bond counsel Roger Hunter pointed out that 55 percent of the 88-mile roadway is considered in “fair to poor” condition.

Tolls have been frozen since 1981, and over the past 28 years, Hunter said, inflation has soared 138 percent, meaning that if fares kept up with that, the per barrier cost should have been $3.

“At this point, there isn’t any justification for continuing the toll on that turnpike when the federal government gives us money to maintain the turnpike, other than the historical fact that it’s there and there are already tolls on it,” Caruth said.

“There isn’t any rationale that occurs to me we should have to pay for the mistakes and sins of the past.”

Caruth acknowledged current board members weren’t serving when the road began to crumble and the decision was made to send turnpike-enticed federal dollars to other interstates in West Virginia.

“Where’s the fairness in obligating the citizens of that part of the state in paying for that?” he asked.

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com