By all rights, Ed Clere should be cringing as Kentucky's Jim Wayne asks: "How to avert bridges injustice?"

Jim Wayne of Louisville (D) represents the 35th district in the Kentucky House. His comments below are reprinted from the Courier-Journal website (March 29, 2012; thanks, WA). Note the reference to tolls on the Sherman Minton, and ask yourself: Why hasn't this been mentioned by Ed Clere and Ron Grooms? Shouldn't they be addressing this point?

Jim Wayne ... Of tolls and trolls: How to avert bridges injustice

The children’s tale of “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” can teach us something about bridges and tolls, as well as trolls. You remember the story: one by one sibling goats cross a bridge to get to their livelihood, the green pastures on the hillside. In turn each goat is stopped by a troll who wants to extract a huge toll (their lives) to cross the bridge he controls. The first two negotiate a reprieve. The third, the oldest and strongest, butts the troll off the bridge, rejecting his demand for the unconscionable toll.

Earlier this month, the Louisville and Southern Indiana Bridges Authority presented their long-awaited financial plan to construct the new Downtown and East End bridges just two weeks before legislators were to endorse it. Included in the plan is a tolling schedule to pay for over $731 million in bonds to help build the $1.3 billion Kentucky portion of the project.

On the face of it, the plan might look reasonable. But so might have the initial greeting of the troll to each goat. Even though a thorough, professional analysis of the financial plan is impossible because the consultant refuses to reveal the study’s methodology, we have to be skeptical of the numbers used to justify the tolls proposed. Traffic counts of current bridge usage reveal a decline in numbers. With rising gas prices driving habits will continue to change. The consultant does not admit a decline in such numbers.

Regardless of possible faulty projections, tolls are not the best way to pay for the new bridges. Tolls are particularly burdensome to the growing numbers of working poor who must cross the river to get to their livelihoods. I am talking about the hard-working men and women who clean the toilets at the hotels and offices, the servers and dishwashers at the restaurants, the people who wash your cars and change your oil, the child care workers and nursing home assistants who change soiled children and elderly.

These citizens were not at the table when the decision was made to toll. Under the plan, frequent users will pay $1 toll each way. Thus the low-income workers will see $500-a-year tax increase (face it, tolls are taxes) to commute to their jobs each work day for 50 weeks a year. They will work an extra week and half each year to stay even.

So, what are the alternatives?

Start by testing the idea of a modest increase in the state gasoline tax. Just a penny increase generates $32 million a year. A nickel increase could finance not only our bridges, but also other worthy road projects such as the badly needed new bridge to Cincinnati, a four-lane highway to Pikeville and the new interstate in Western Kentucky. The gas tax spreads the cost to all drivers in a fashion that is more just than targeted toll. Instead of $500 a year, the working poor would pay about $10 a year more in taxes with a nickel gas tax increase.

Secondly, the formula for allocating the state road fund, which was set up in the 1940s when 70 of the state’s population lived in rural areas, needs to change. Instead of distributing the money based on road miles, it should be based on road usage. In his 2003 analysis of Kentucky’s road fund, Dr. Paul Coomes, economist at the University of Louisville, showed the drain of Louisville’s dollars to pay for rural roads. As a consequence Jefferson County doesn’t have sufficient funds to pay for our bridges project, resulting in the need for tolls.

But if in the end we are left with tolls as the only option, their injustice must be minimized by guaranteeing to anyone who works across the river and is at 200 percent of the federal poverty level, a toll rebate at the end of each year. Their W2s and a toll receipt summary would substantiate their eligibility. TARC, which serves this same group, should also be exempt.

Finally, some argue the poor don’t need to use the new bridges and can avoid tolls by simply using the non-tolled Clark and Sherman Minton bridges. This sounds similar to Marie Antoinette’s cake statement. It also minimizes the fact that 13 years after the new bridges open the Sherman Minton Bridge will also be tolled (a fact never mentioned in any public meeting on the financial plan in Frankfort). So, what are all the poor workers expected to do? Converge on the narrow 90-year-old Clark Bridge to get to and from work?

The financial plan has been hatched in the brains of mostly wealthy white males, who may have little empathy for the growing number of working poor. I suggest these smart leaders go back to the drawing board and develop a more just, workable plan that serves the needs of all the residents of Kentucky and Indiana, not just their country club cohorts. They need not be seen as trolls.