Sen. Roger Manno
Posted on 02/27/2017 5:19:00 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Excessive penalties and poor customer service at the E-ZPass electronic toll collection system have put some Marylanders on the path to “toll bankruptcy,” Sen. Roger Manno told the Senate Finance Committee last week.
“Folks [are] exasperated because they’ve been caught in a system that is not working,” Manno said.
Broad enforcement powers enacted in 2013 to address toll violations have led to wage attachments, financial hardship and non-renewal of vehicle registrations at MVA, witnesses testified.
Sen. Roger Manno
“The penalty structure that we set several years ago in the General Assembly was not intended to be punitive,” Manno said. “It was not intended to strip people of their rights and their assets.”
But the head of the Maryland Transportation Authority, which runs the toll facilities, told the senators that only a tiny percentage of drivers have been affected.
“I don’t want to minimize the pain that certain customers have gone through, but running the numbers only .001% wound up in a circumstance” like this, said Kevin Reigrut, MDTA’s new executive director. He said 99.3% of Maryland toll customers are paying their tolls without incident.
“MDTA has no intention of wanting to be in the bill collection business,” Reigrut said. He said the 2013 law gave MDTA the power to address extraordinary circumstances — but the agency has to hear about them.
Correction: In the past two years, the state assessed collected $223 million in toll fines and collected $34 million.
Biggest problems at ICC
Almost all the citizens who testified for the bill had problems with the InterCounty Connector, Route 200, the state’s all-electronic video toll road connecting Gaithersburg and Laurel. The ICC uses video snapshots of license plates to bill commuters who don’t subscribe to E-ZPass or when subscribers’ transponders fail to register at any of eight tolling gantries along the route.
Manno’s office has been inundated with pleas to help settle minor toll violations that snowballed into “tens of thousands of dollars” in penalties – after citizens failed get a resolution from E-Z Pass or MDTA. Manno’s District 19 in Montgomery County includes part of the ICC.
“The myriad of problems that they encountered with MDTA steered them toward a path of accruing civil penalties and exorbitant debt: late bill notices in the mail, lost checks, and inconsistent and confusing customer service,” said Manno in written testimony.
The 2013 law gave MDTA the power to block registrations renewals and refer past due accounts to the state’s Central Collection Unit.
A $50 fine kicks in for each violation not paid after 45 days. After an additional 45 days the debt is transferred to CCU where a 17% fee is tacked on.
Manno is sponsoring a bill, SB139, co-sponsored by most of the Montgomery County’s Democratic senators and two Republicans, to reduce the $50 fine per violation to 25% of the original toll — and prohibit MDTA from referring delinquent accounts to CCU.
“If it’s a two-dollar toll the penalty would be 50 cents,” Manno said.
Of the 5.1 million violations in 2016, 4.7 million occurred on the ICC, according to a legislative analysis.
Motorists testify on ‘toll hell’
Manno told committee members that technical problems with transponders and credit card processing mistakes started motorists on a path to “toll hell.” Often motorists were unaware of any problems while they continued to accrue additional tolls and penalties.
After an expired credit card prevented replenishment of her E-ZPass account, Deborah Liverpool of Silver Spring said 17 tolls of less than $3 each swelled to almost $1,000 in fines in one month.
She said penalties had already accrued before she was able to provide new credit card information.
Stephanie Grogoza of Rockville said her elderly parents received a collection notice of $300 for less than $9 in tolls incurred on the ICC. Grogoza said her parents, one retired Navy and the other a bank auditor, never received the initial bill.
“If they got a bill they would have paid it,” she said. “They play by the rules.”
John McNamara, a retired Foreign Service officer from Derwood, said he was billed twice for the same trip on the ICC, once on his E-ZPass account and later with a video toll he received by mail. He said E-ZPass refused to accept proof of the mistake by email. He was told he had to send a fax or visit a service center.
In written testimony, the Maryland Motor Truck Association said a member’s registration renewal was blocked due to $23,000 in tolls and fines that had accumulated since 2008.
Notices were sent to the wrong mailing address even though MVA records were correct.
“MDTA mailed these notices of tolls due to an address this company has not occupied for many years,” said Louis Campion of the truck association. “He is not a toll avoider. His E-ZPass account has never been negative and last year [he] paid $50,000 in tolls.”
Jen Diamond, of the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition, a group that advocates for low income Marylanders said the 2013 law was a “classic case of unintended consequences” and a “draconian approach to funding Maryland’s infrastructure.”
“We’ve heard horror stories of clients forced to file for bankruptcy in order to address a few unpaid E-ZPass tolls,” Diamond said.
Four notices sent
MDTA chief Reigrut said that no fewer than four notifications are sent to the vehicle owner before the violations are sent to CCU
“For the 99.3% of our customers who are paying as expected, we have an obligation to ensure that we are able to collect the tolls that are due,” Reigrut said.
He said his agency has the power to recall accounts from CCU only if a mistake was made by MDTA or E-ZPass
“This is a punitive, if not predatory, collections process by a government against its people,” Manno said in an interview Monday. “Tell me where else in commerce in the real world where a penalty scheme like this exists.”
“There are 340,000 Marylanders whose accounts have been forwarded to CCU,” Manno said. “That’s one in every 18 Marylanders in collection at CCU for toll violations.”
Toll bonds could see downgrade
All MDTA toll-backed revenue bonds are subject to trust agreements that require revenues be maintained at certain levels. Historically, Maryland has enjoyed stellar bond ratings because MDTA’s board has the authority to set toll rates without legislative interference.
“The bill necessitates a change to the trust agreement with MDTA’s bondholders and/or prompts a reduction in MDTA’s bond ratings,” according to the fiscal note.
“Bills like SB139 could be problematic for our Trust Agreement,” said Cheryl Sparks, communications director for MDTA. “It could compromise our statutory independence and have a negative effect on the MDTA credit worthiness and lead to higher bond/loan rates.”
In 2015 and 2016 the state collected $91 million and $132 million respectively in toll fines.
Collections unit wants to place liens
While Manno wants to take accounts away from CCU, the state government collection agency now wants the power to file property liens as proposed in HB104, a Department of Budget and Management bill aimed at quicker collections.
CCU Director Anthony Fuegett said the agency’s primary tool of wage garnishments was time consuming, taking up to three years.
“We don’t garnish enough people,” Fuegett told the House Appropriations Committee Jan. 31, referring to findings in two years of legislative audits.
Jesse Lawyer, deputy director of CCU told the committee that E-ZPass account “are a large part of our portfolio.To date we’ve brought on 1.9 million accounts.” Each represents a single violation.
Ass.... Malloy is working on bringing them back to connecticut.
I drive on I-95 to and from work every day. I have used the express probably less then once a month, only when traffic is very bad. And by the looks of it, I am not the only person to do the same thing.
I think the ICC is pulling in expected revenue, but that’s far from enough to pay off the bonds. Hence, the toll increases elsewhere on the system, reduced somewhat by Governor Hogan.
Toll increases were for other capital projects on the system as well.
Sounds like NY too
Eisenhower’s original intent was for interstate highways to have tolls, but Congress had other ideas, and Eisenhower ultimately accepted the gas tax method of funding.
I commuted from Aberdeen to Baltimore during most of the building of this monstrosity. About as soon as it opened, I began working from home and missed out on the commute.
But, I can’t tell you how many times at all different times of day, I’ll track a car that got on the express lanes. He’s usually still in sight, sometimes in my mirror when he re-joins regular traffic.
Tolls for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge were originally intended to be temporary, but they are basically permanent.
Cocoa Beach area had a $0.25 toll on a stretch of the Bee Line going to Orlando, from the Space Center. When the life of the toll was done, the bond for road was paid for, the bureaucrats did not remove the toll right away. They collected for another year to pay for removing the toll booth.
Eisenhower’s original intent was for interstate highways to have tolls,
Eisenhower's "original intent" can be read here...
"The Governor's Conference and the President's Advisory Committee are agreed that the Federal share of the needed construction program should be about 30 percent of the toal, leaving to State and local units responsibility to finance the reamaineder...
...Financing of interstate and Federal-aid systems should be based on the planned use of increasing revenues from present gas and diesel oil taxes, augmented in limited instances with tolls"
Message to the Congress regarding highways, February 22, 1955 [White House Office, Office of the Press Secretary to the President, Box 4, Press Releases Feb. 8-March 14, 1955; NAID #16857605]
It appears it was congress who wanted toll roads...
Who created the Interstate System?
The concept of an Interstate system as we know it was first described in a 1939 report to Congress called Toll Roads and Free Roads. The report rejected the toll superhighway network Congress had suggested; revenue from tolls on most segments would not support the bonds issued for their construction. However, the report added that the country needed a toll-free express highway network.
...
Through the remainder of his years as President, he searched for ways to solve the problems that plagued the program in its early years and pushed for continued work on the Interstate System. His leadership in promoting the 1956 Act and moving the program forward on schedule has earned President Eisenhower the title "Father of the Interstate System."
Limited Instances - not the predatory "bidness as usual" model being inflicted today... “Toll road backer hires Halliburton subsidiary” http://m.gazette.com/toll-road-backer-hires-halliburton-subsidiary/article/18581
Eisenhower's "Military-Industrial Complex" Speech
Origins and Significance
And that is one of about three reasons why I take I-81 (sixty miles extra) rather than I-95 when driving from Georgia to Connecticut...minimize time and tolls in Maryland. The other two reasons are New Jersey and NYC.
Over 11 years ago, while my wife and I were traveling around the country deciding where we wanted to move to, we had our mail forwarded to my brother in MD. For about 8 weeks he would box it up once a week and UPS it to us where ever we were.
Fast forward after we had been living in another state for a year or two. We get a letter from the Freak State demanding that we pay state income tax for the year in which those 8 weeks occurred if we couldn’t prove we weren’t living there. MD didn’t think it had to prove we were living there.
I responded appropriately and received confirmation from MD that the issue was settled. Now, 10 years later I still have a file saved on the whole matter because I know some paper pusher could dig out the file and claim we owe them money...start it up all over again.
I wonder who the MTA lobbyist spent time and money with The right to due process is not provided here in any way. It should be unconstitutional.
COMMERCE BETWEEN MASTER AND SLAVE IS ___________?
Never understood tolls, unfortunately thenorthern horror taxation is now everywhere. It’s like taking your liter sofa back to the store everyday to pay for it again. Tolls are not being used for anything more than union pensions and govt shell games. We are all Living in taxachusetts. Liberal money laundering. Let’s take a failed policy and do it again.
Tolls - because the Democrats stole all the money you already paid in taxes to build the road.
The problem with the express lanes is that they don’t go far enough. Heading south, you’re dumped back into general traffic before the Fort McHenry Tunnel bottleneck. And going north, yeah it helps if you’re going to White Marsh, but otherwise you’re dumped back into general traffic well before you get to Bel Air.
The solution, at least on the south end, would have been to add two tunnel tubes and four lanes of traffic (two each way) from the tunnel down to I-395. But since it would probably be cheaper to establish colonies on Mars than it would be to build all that, a cheaper solution would have been to have one of the tunnel tubes be reversible, and have reversible lanes from there down to I-395. So, in the morning, you’d have a total of 4 general lanes plus 2 express lanes going south, and 2 general lanes going north; reverse that in the afternoon.
An added bonus of this would be that you could have both outbound lanes of I-395 to I-95 south continue through (in the afternoon) instead of having them merge into one lane, thus causing backups on I-395. (I.e. 2 general lanes on I-95 going south before I-395, plus the 2 lanes from I-395 heading to south I-95, joining together to form 4 lanes of I-95, which is what you have now.)
Yeah, I know, it all makes too much sense; so it’ll never happen.
Another reason why I’m glad got my EZ Pass transponder from Penn DOT.
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