Leaving New Hampshire could soon get a lot more expensive. Drivers headed south down Interstate 93 would pay a $2 toll in Salem under a proposal from Transportation Commissioner George Campbell.

Campbell emphasized that the plan is preliminary and toll booths likely wouldn't be operational for at least four years - and only then after the concept won approval from both the federal government and state lawmakers.

Campbell has submitted the idea to the federal government, seeking an opinion on whether it fits the bill of a pilot program that will permit three new toll projects on the nation's Interstate Highway System.

A $2 toll on the south-bound lanes of I-93 would generate $32 million a year, Campbell said.

That revenue would underwrite $300 million of the cost of expanding Interstate 93 south of Manchester, a project that is expected to cost $780 million.

To Campbell's eyes, there's little doubt that there will, eventually, be a new toll on Interstate 93 - but it remains to be seen whether Massachusetts or New Hampshire will get the revenue.

"The question is whether or not it really ought to be in New Hampshire because we're the ones who have got the $800 million project," he said.

Campbell said he has asked the federal government about whether the state could build an "open-road" toll, the kind that E-ZPass holders can drive through at a high rate of speed. The proposal calls for toll booths only on south-bound lanes, a configuration that Campbell said is cheaper and friendlier to the environment than two-way tolls.

As for where the booths would go, Campbell said, he aims to place the toll plaza "as close to the border as we can get it."

So far, the U.S. Department of Transportation has heard expressions of interest from two states, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, about the toll booth pilot program for roads needing reconstruction, said spokesman Doug Hecox.

Massachusetts has nothing in the works for tolls of its own, said Klark Jessen, a spokesman for that state's Executive Office of Transportation.

"We have no plans to consider tolls on I-93 and no plans under consideration to consider border tolling in any areas where we don't already have tolls," he said.

But Campbell said he had received an e-mail in November from the state's federal highway division administrator saying that Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation Bernard Cohen had "expressed interest" to a colleague in "tolling interests at state borders."

Campbell said he does not plan to bring his idea for Salem tolls to New Hampshire lawmakers this year, although it must be approved by the Legislature, Executive Council and the governor, he said. Instead, he said he's going to wait until he hears from the federal government about New Hampshire's eligibility.

"I'm not asking them to approve it, because I don't know what we're eligible for," he said.

Single page