By Adam Swift
The city won’t be going into business as tollbooth operators anytime soon.
At Monday night’s city council meeting, Ward 3 Councillor Anthony Cogliandro and Ward 1 Councillor Joanne McKenna introduced a motion asking that the council, in collaboration with the mayor, city planner, and any other relevant stakeholders, begin a formal discussion on the feasibility of implementing tolls on certain city roads.
While the motion was defeated by a 6-5 vote, Cogliandro said the goal was not necessarily to immediately install tollbooths on city roads, but to open up a discussion about the amount of vehicles that use Revere as a cut-through route to Boston and other locations and its impact on the local infrastructure.
After the motion was defeated, Council President Marc Silvestri introduced a successful motion asking that the city have discussions with MassDOT about Revere residents being eligible for reduced tolls on the Tobin Bridge and Boston tunnels.
“In doing research, there have been multiple cities throughout the country that have done this, only to have these municipalities be taken over by the state, which is fine,” said Cogliandro. “Because we are a pass-through city, we have train stations, we have the first public beach, we are a legitimate cut-through city and we don’t get any aid, any extra revenue to help us because of that. This will help cut down traffic, this will help increase revenue; imagine what this would do for our infrastructure if we did something like this.”
Cogliandro said he understood the introduction of city tolls would take a home rule petition and much discussion, but said he would like to start the process at the city level to explore the idea.
McKenna said that as she has been campaigning, one of the major concerns she hears about is overdevelopment causing traffic congestion in Revere.
Besides the development, McKenna echoed that Revere is a cut-through city with many motorists taking local streets to travel to Boston.
“Bennington Street alone has 12,000 cars a day cutting through Beachmont,” she said. “Revere has one of, if not the highest, car insurance rates in Massachusetts … because there are so many accidents.”
McKenna noted that New York City and other cities around the world have introduced congestion pricing and tolls to help alleviate traffic issues and provide enticements for public transportation.
Both McKenna and Cogliandro noted that Revere residents and employees would be exempt from any city tolls under the proposed motion.
Ward 2 Councillor Ira Novoselsky said he understood the reasoning behind the motion, but that it was unrealistic to expect that it would amount to anything.
“This will never happen because it has to be approved by MassDOT,” he said. “We passed this, back in 2009, on a motion by one of our councillors, to put a tollbooth on Ocean Avenue. Now here it is in 2025, and do you see a tollbooth? It was never approved, it was never even considered by MassDOT.”
Councillor-at-Large Juan Pablo Jaramillo said he supported the motion as a way to encourage increased use of public transportation in Revere.
“I think this a right move, whether it actually happens or not, that remains to be seen, I agree with my colleague, Councillor Novoselsky, but at the very least, I’d be willing to support a conversation around this,” he said.
Silvestri said he could not support the motion, noting that it would essentially be an additional tax in the city, and that it could lead to surrounding communities placing a toll on Revere commuters as they travel through those other communities.
