<P> Asphalt proved less expensive, and it was used again when the next, and last, section of the Taconic, to the Thruway, was paved in the early 1960s . During this time another governor, Nelson Rockefeller, proposed that management of the road be turned over to a new entity, the East Hudson Parkway Authority (EHPA), along with all the other Westchester parkways, since the debt the county had incurred building and maintaining them was becoming a financial burden to it . The new authority would oversee a $50 million rehabilitation program . </P> <P> The TSPC was opposed to the new plan . Its commissioners feared that their greatest work would pass to the control of an agency for which it would be just one of many responsibilities, and that it would be necessary to make the Taconic a toll road in order to pay for the improvements planned . When the bill passed and the EHPA was created, with most of its members from Westchester, Columbia County residents feared the road would never be completed . The TSPC was allowed to operate the Taconic through 1962, by agreement with the EHPA, since the former's budget was already in place . </P> <P> When it took over, the EHPA established the toll gate at the Thruway as the northern limit of its jurisdiction, ending any plans that some of the TSPC commissioners had had of continuing at least to US 20 a short distance to the north . An opening ceremony celebrating the completion of the road after almost four decades was planned for November 25, 1963 . It was canceled due to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy three days earlier . </P> <Dl> <Dt> 1961--79, EHPA administration </Dt> </Dl>

Are there tolls on the taconic state parkway