PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — 10 On Your Side is back on back on toll patrol, and there’s more noise being made about dropping tolls at the Elizabeth River Tunnels.
Earlier this month, we told you about the committee formed to fight what could be a lifetime of rate hikes, and now that group is gaining support.
This anti-toll task force made up of elected officials and others hasn’t met yet, but their mission will be to come up with solutions to pay down tolls, then to lobby to get it done.
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Tolls are crippling Portsmouth businesses, says Tony Goodwin, a businessman and member of the Hampton Roads Chamber.
“It’s evident traffic is down. Numbers are down. People have personal budgets, and they are not spending extra money. They have got to get to and from work.”
Portsmouth businesses have seen this.
Let’s take Roger Brown, who helps operate Roger Brown’s Restaurant and Sports Bar.
“I have been here when you could shoot a gun down High Street and not a thing, I mean it was empty.”
Then Roger Brown’s opened in 2000. Tolls began in January 2014.
Five years later, Roger Brown has seen it all, and all is not pretty.
“I feel if they like the food, if they like the business, they like the shopping, then they are going to come.”
But are people coming to Roger Brown’s in numbers like they had before the tolls began?
“Oh, no. No way,” Brown says shaking his head no. “I’d say 20 or 30 percent [lower].”
Because of tolls? “Oh yes,” Brown says.
To be fair, it’s not only tolls. The Virginia Sports Hall of Fame closed down next door. The numbers are down at the Children’s Museum of Virginia, and there are lots of new apartments across the street.
Brown says, “well, a lot of those people are not coming here. They cook for themselves.”
The Anti-Toll Task Force is pushing for the State to do more to get rid of tolls to pay them down, “I want them to evaluate the long term effect of what this contract will do to Hampton roads and its economy,” Goodwin says.
ERC says they understand the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization unanimously approved the Anti-Toll Task Force
“While ERC would not participate as a member of the working group, as was stated at the January HRTPO meeting, we are happy to meet with members of the group for informational purposes if it would be helpful.”
Carley Dobson
Communications Manager
ERC
Goodwin ends, “We talked about this back as far as 2008. That was going to be a crippling deal for everyone, but most for Portsmouth and the businesses trying to survive down here.”
The state has already paid down over $125 million in tolls, and paid down enough to make the Martin Luther King Freeway free. The real question is how much more can, or will, they do? That will be the ultimate work of the task force.