PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — A federal appeals court on Friday issued its long-awaited decision in the court battle over Rhode Island's truck tolls, finding the state's caps on tolls for local traffic were unconstitutional, but that the overall system could remain in place.

The truck tolls were a linchpin of then-Gov. Gina Raimondo’s RhodeWorks transportation funding plan, enacted in 2016, which sought to improve the condition of Rhode Island’s worst-in-the-nation bridges. The tolling program specifically levied charges on heavy trucks at multiple locations.

A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partly reversed and partly upheld a lower court's decision that threw out the entire toll system as unconstitutional. The state had halted collection of the truck tolls back in September 2022 after the lower court decision.

Attorney General Peter Neronha, whose office led the state's court defense of the tolling program, issued a statement hailing the decision.

"In 2016, the General Assembly and Governor Raimondo made the decision that tolling trucks is in the best interest of all Rhode Islanders and a necessary revenue source to support repairs and upkeep of the state’s transportation system," he said. "We have now successfully defended the legality and constitutionality of that decision."

"Today, the 1st Circuit has held that, with the exception of caps on tolls, RhodeWorks is constitutional," Neronha added. "We have been confident that this will be the eventual outcome, and we are grateful for the 1st Circuit’s well-reasoned decision in this case."

Gov. Dan McKee lauded the decision, saying he'd "long been confident about the merits of the case." He called it a "victory for Rhode Island taxpayers," and praised Senate President Dominick Ruggerio and House Speaker Joe Shekarchi for their support, along with outside attorney Ian Gershegorn for his work on the appeal.

"I dedicated considerable resources to hiring Ian Gershengorn, former acting solicitor general of the United States, and his team at Jenner & Block to handle the appeal and I am grateful for their incredible work," McKee said in a statement.

"The court’s ruling allows the State to continue using a proven tool to make vital upgrades and repairs to Rhode Island’s infrastructure, a matter of great importance to residents and businesses across our state," he added.

McKee said the decision prevents what could have been a clawback of tens of millions of dollars already collected in truck tolls. As to when the toll gantries might be reactivate, he said it's currently being determined and he plans to meet with Shekarchi and Ruggerio "to discuss our options."

Transportation Director Peter Alviti said he was “very pleased with the court’s decision.”

“This validates RhodeWorks in both principle and practice,” he said in a statement.

The decision was also met with criticism from truck-toll opponents, including state Republican Rep. Brian Newberry.

"Worst case ruling for Rhode Island business and economy and thus residents," Newberry posted on social media. "The state would be wise to now scrap this whole thing altogether."

12 News is awaiting comment on the decision from the trucking industry. The litigation has been closely watched in other parts of the country as states examine ways of generating additional revenue to fund transportation projects.

In order to ease the burden on local companies, lawmakers included three caps on toll payments in the law. As summarized in the court decision: "A truck cannot pay a toll more than once in each direction, cannot pay more than $40 per day, and cannot pay more than $20 for making a single 'through trip' from Connecticut to Massachusetts."

American Trucking Associations, Cumberland Farms and other businesses filed suit in 2018, arguing that it was unconstitutional for the state to single out one class of vehicles and exempt others. Raimondo insisted at the time that her administration had commissioned an analysis showing her strategy was legal.

Rhode Island U.S. District Judge William Smith initially dismissed the suit in 2019, but his decision was reversed by the 1st Circuit later that year. After a trial in the spring of 2022, Smith ruled the tolls unconstitutional and barred the state from collecting them. McKee's administration appealed Smith's ruling, culminating in Friday's decision.

In explaining their decision to throw out the caps, U.S. Appeals Judge William Kayatta wrote, "out-of-state tractor-trailers receive substantially less of a discount per bridge crossing than do in-state tractor-trailers. Therefore, the privilege of toll capping is considerably more valuable for intrastate carriers than it is for interstate carriers."

The judge pointed to studies previously cited by the General Assembly that indicated tractor-trailers account for much of the road damage on highways.

"The district court seemed to view the fee as excessive because a tractor-trailer's 'use' of a bridge is no different from a car's use of the bridge, which the district court defined as 'to cross' the bridge," Kayatta wrote. "Clearly, though, a state can charge users of a facility a fee that covers all or some portion of the damage that use does to the facility."

In his 2022 decision, Smith relied on expert testimony that claimed the majority of damage from a truck to a bridge is to the pavement, and not the overall structure. But the appellate court said it matters either way.

“Logically, if a bridge's pavement is impassable and potholed, a driver cannot use the bridge safely even if the bridge's other components remain perfectly healthy,” Kayatta wrote. "In other words, a bridge is only as strong as its weakest link. So, if a bridge's deck (which includes the pavement) is significantly degraded, federal law requires a state to assume that the entire bridge is significantly degraded."

He also wrote, "Rhode Island's conclusion that tractor-trailers cause most of the damage to the pavement is consistent with that common sense. We therefore do not substitute our own judgment for that of the Rhode Island legislature."