New tolling rates frustrate some commuters
When the state Department of Transportation announced the new toll rates on the Massachusetts Turnpike, drivers seemed to be getting a good deal. Two-thirds of trips on the highway would cost the same or less, officials said, and the move to all-electronic tolling would be largely “revenue-neutral.”
But for some commuters, particularly in the Newton area, the new overhead gantries are quietly siphoning more money from their transponder accounts, a jump that has caught many off guard.
For Faust Fabio, who lives in Newton and works in Chelsea, a one-way trip on the Mass. Pike and the Tobin Bridge has increased from about $2 to $2.95 since the new rates went into effect in late October. Coupled with other price changes on his way home, he will probably wind up paying more than $300 a year in additional toll costs, he said.
“What really irks me is that they said there wasn’t going to be a big increase in tolls,” he said.
While traveling on many sections of the highway costs less, drivers must now pay a 35-cent toll in Newton, where there had been no tollbooth, as well as different rates at other locations.
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