Traffic patterns | Maine Turnpike Authority chief is unruffled by controversies
Photo/Tim Greenway
Paul Violette, executive director of the Maine Turnpike Authority, says the financial health of the authority is strong thanks to turnpike tolls and its bond ratings
Paul Violette concedes highway maintenance isn’t sexy — a topic more suitable, perhaps, for an engineering conference than a news story. But get him talking about the Maine Turnpike Authority’s plan for a new toll plaza in York, how out-of-staters pay a higher share of the pike’s maintenance costs than Mainers do, or — his favorite — the authority’s outstanding bond rating, and he’s positively aglow.
“Businesses here in Maine rely on traffic and transportation,” says Violette, who, as executive director, has overseen the authority since 1988. “It may not be sexy, but we have a plan to maintain the turnpike and keep on being predictable and stable.”
Key to that stability are toll revenues, which fund most of the authority’s $105 million budget to maintain the 109-mile roadway, its 176 bridges and 19 interchanges. The authority receives no state or federal funding — fiscal independence that is both a blessing and a curse, says Violette. The authority’s AA bond rating from Fitch and Moody’s and the A+ from Standard & Poor’s puts it among the top six toll authorities in the country. That means it has few problems borrowing money (it currently has $400 million in bonds outstanding, says Violette) and is insulated from the effects of the state’s fiscal woes.
On the flipside, although the MTA has no access to taxpayer money, it falls under state oversight. The Legislature approves its operating budget, sets its bond cap and confirms appointments to the turnpike authority’s board of directors. Those ties to state government were strengthened in 1983 when lawmakers voted to keep tolls on the turnpike, rather than adhere to an agreement with the federal government to remove them once the turnpike’s debt was retired.
“I was in the state Senate at the time, representing Aroostook County,” says Violette, a Van Buren native. “We had just increased the state gas tax by a nickel. We realized (if tolls were removed) we would have to raise the gas tax even more to maintain the highway and those costs would fall on the backs of the Maine taxpayer,” not the people from away who were the primary pike users.
Today about 35% of turnpike travelers are from out of state, but they provide roughly 55% of the toll revenue, says Violette. The bulk of that (40%) is collected at the York toll plaza, a 41-year-old structure that Violette would like to see scrapped and relocated about a mile north. Some York County residents oppose the move and are pushing for an all-electronic toll plaza in the footprint of the existing one. The Army Corps of Engineers is studying competing proposals for a new toll plaza and is expected to issue a decision before the end of the year.
The dust-up has led to another controversy. The state Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability conducted a two-month review of the MTA this spring after lawmakers raised questions about surplus revenue transfers to the Maine Department of Transportation and the MTA’s heralded bond rating. OPEGA is expected to issue a final report in September.
Violette is unruffled by the probe, waving his hand over a spreadsheet depicting a 10-year plan for capital upgrades and maintenance work on the pike accounting for its revenues — no surpluses in sight.
“We’re meeting or exceeding the standards (for legislative compliance), so maybe this is a good thing,” says Violette of the investigation. “That’s politics.”
He sees more good news connected to the York plaza, where traffic is regarded as an economic bellwether: This year’s Memorial Day traffic was up 5% over the 2009 holiday. “I’m encouraged,” he says of the coming tourist season. “We have to have good weather, but I’m hearing hotel and campground reservations are good.”
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