“Not in our backyard” – With the New Hampshire  State Turnpike Bureau about hold a series of public hearings about options for placing “tolls” on the Everett Turnpike – with one scheduled Nov. 17 in Nashua – the Nashua Board of Alderman took a stand last night. According to an article by Patrick Meighan in the Nashua Telegraph:

The Board of Aldermen on Tuesday almost unanimously backed a resolution that puts the city on record objecting to placing any tolls within the city limits. That vote wasn’t a surprise. More interesting was why the board was in a hurry to pass the resolution immediately, suspending the rules to give it a second reading and allowing it to come to a vote at the same meeting in which the legislation was introduced.

 The state Turnpike Bureau will soon hold a series of public hearings, with one scheduled Nov. 17 in Nashua, on options for placing tolls on the F.E. Everett Turnpike. That hearing will be held at 6:30 p.m. in the City Hall auditorium…

Tolls could be placed anywhere from the Massachusetts border to Manchester, but among the options is putting a toll in Nashua between Exits 1 and 2, said Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly. The reason for the tolls is the completion of a new access road that leads from the turnpike just south of the Bedford tolls to the Manchester airport. When the access road opens, the state stands to lose an estimated $4.8 million in toll revenue, Pressly said.

The new access road was built with federal money thus cannot be a site for a toll booth or any electronic means to collect a fee. Alderman Pressly is urging all Nashua resident to protest a Nashua toll site. Why? Perhaps it’s the vision of even more traffic gridlock at the root of Pressly’s persistence. Ironically, one Alderman was late to the meeting as she was stuck in traffic!

Read the full article here.