Collecting tolls on the Maine Turnpike is an inefficient way to collect taxes. It requires maintaining and building toll plazas. According to a story in the Sun Journal Dec. 23, 2005, a new toll plaza costing $32 million is planned for York. And I was told by the Maine Turnpike Authority that 300 employees (participants in the Maine State Retirement System) collect tolls at an annual cost of $12 million.

Making the turnpike a free highway could save those costs. The same amount now collected in tolls could be replaced by a small increase in motor vehicle fuel taxes. The extra few cents wouldn’t cost any more to collect – the system that collects the fuel tax is already in place.

Those who might object to that method to reduce costs will point out that a significant amount of turnpike toll revenue comes from out-of state drivers, and those critics would be correct. It is, I admit, a seductive argument to have someone else pay our taxes. Relieving tourists and truckers from Maine Turnpike tolls will not free them from paying a share of the lost revenue. How will they avoid it?

Unless they strap cans of gasoline on their roof racks, all those out-of-state drivers, the ones that sit bumper to bumper every summer on coastal Route 1, and especially those seen driving in the turnpike’s breakdown lane, will have to buy gasoline. When they do, they will pay a fuel tax.

Dick Sabine, Lewiston