Rhode Island's toll scheme directed at certain types of tractor-trailers was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court on Wednesday in a sound defeat for the state's attempt to make the trucking industry pay for the repair of its roads and bridges.
William E. Smith, the presiding U.S. District Court Judge, wrote in a colorful conclusion to the case that the country's smallest state since at least the 1980s had begrudged its reputation as little more than a "fast lane" to Cape Cod and other attractions in New England, and that the plan to tax trucks and only trucks was indeed discriminatory and illegal.
Rhode Island began collecting the tolls, which range from $2.25 to $9.50, in 2018 along I-95. The Rhode Island Department of Transportation, in a quarterly update earlier this summer, said it has been collecting tolls at 12 locations across the state, and that work to design a 13th location was still ongoing. RIDOT said on its website it had hoped to collect almost $45 million in tolls each year. The tolls themselves had been in the works since 2015.
The department noted that "revenues from active locations were consistent and on-target with projections" in the third fiscal quarter of the year.
Judge Smith nodded to the state's deep need for infrastructure funding and the several delays to the implementation of the tolls in his opinion, but ultimately sided with the American Trucking Associations, M&M Transport Services and Cumberland Farms, who filed suit in 2018.
“We told Rhode Island’s leaders from the start that their crazy scheme was not only discriminatory, but illegal,” said ATA President and CEO Chris Spear in a statement. “We’re pleased the court agreed. To any state looking to target our industry, you better bring your A-game ... because we’re not rolling over.”
The judge ruled that Rhode Island's plan violates the Constitution’s Commerce Clause by discriminating against out-of-state economic interests in order to favor in-state interests, and by designing the tolls in a way that "does not fairly approximate" in-state motorists' "use of the facilities under any relevant measurement."
