Nov 12, 2008 8:44 am US/Eastern
Pike Toll Plan Escalates Mass. 'Civil War'
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
Unfair.
That's what some who use the eastern end of the Massachusetts Turnpike are calling the
new plan to raise tolls on them while dropping tolls on western Mass. drivers.
The complaint is just the latest salvo in a battle that's been going on for centuries between eastern and western Massachusetts.
Myopic eastern Mass. power-brokers have always had a bad attitude toward the west, which they often define as including central Mass.
In fact, State House legend holds that the turnpike loops around Worcester as a show of contempt by Boston politicians.
So call the turnpike toll fallout a taste of revenge for the west in this eternal intra-state civil war.
"This has been going on for two, three hundred years now," said
Stephen Crosby, dean of the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
All the way back to the
Shays Rebellion of 1786, an uprising by farmers tired of oppressive taxation from Boston.
It continued through the 1930's flooding of four towns to create the
Quabbin Reservoir water supply for greater Boston.
"The people of the west feel, sometimes with good reason, that they are effectively discriminated against," said Crosby.
"There are multiple dimensions of it, there's economic, there's political, and there's cultural."
"The economics of Massachusetts are indeed centered on Boston," he adds. "Politically, half the reps and senators get a nosebleed if they go west of 495."
"And then culturally there is at least a sense in the western part of the state that the people in the eastern part looks down their noses at them, that they're farmers."
That's an attitude never more in evidence than during the ill-fated governorship of Jane Swift of North Adams, whose every misstep was greeted with a knowing shrug that said - what did you expect from a hick from the sticks?
But now, a governor from the east with a second home in the west has decreed that there be toll relief for Hicksville.
"It's the right thing to do if the economics of it really work but its not gonna get him any points from people around here who are looking for money, big time," said Crosby.
And that speaks to the fundamental imbalance that keeps the Massachusetts civil war percolating after all these years - most of the money and the votes are in the east.
That's why his toll decision may well come back to haunt Patrick if and when he stands for re-election two years from now.
The governor is expected to make an announcement about his turnpike proposal Thursday.
The board is expected to vote on it Friday.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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