The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Local News

September 22, 2009

UPDATE: Turnpike agency trying anew to toll I-80

By Matt Snyder

MERCER COUNTY — After cooling its heels for a year, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is again pursuing a federal application to take over and toll Interstate 80.

Their application to toll was denied last September by the Federal Highway Administration, which said their proposed payments to PennDOT for leasing and tolling I-80 were never linked to the costs of running I-80.

The Turnpike Commission plans over the next two months to submit a fair market analysis comparing what they pay PennDOT in lease money to the leases of other tolling groups across the country, commission spokesman Carl DeFebo said Tuesday.

Plans to toll I-80 are part of a broader state law enacted to repair Pennsylvania’s crumbling roads and bridges. The Turnpike Commission was to be given tolling powers over I-80 and also increase tolls on the Turnpike, then pay PennDOT about $1 billion a year. But they had to get federal approval to toll a federal highway.

DeFebo claimed the federal government never rejected the tolling application, but just wanted reassurance that the deal with PennDOT was fair and in line with the private sector.

Shenango Valley Chamber of Commerce chief George Gerhart, who is a vocal opponent of the tolling plan, said the state’s entire plan to pump money from I-80 into other projects around the state was turned down, leading to the widespread view that plans were dead.

“The guidelines require money collected from tolls must all go to that particular highway,” he said. “And the application indicated that funds were going to be distributed not only to (Interstate) 80, but to other projects in the Commonwealth.”

A Highway Administration spokeswoman said she would check on whether or not the tolling program would require all money to be spent on I-80, but did not have an answer readily available Tuesday.

Under the lease deal worked out with the state, the Turnpike Commission is paying out a full $900 million annually to PennDOT for road and bridge repair, DeFebo said.

If the Turnpike Commission doesn’t get rights to toll I-80, their payments will be cut nearly in half to about $450 million next summer. DeFebo added that the rate will be flat, and will not increase with inflation over 50 years while a toll on I-80 would provide steadily increasing funds.

He also argued that unless I-80 is tolled, the Turnpike will continue to bleed traffic and therefore revenues as motorists divert onto I-80. Tolling both major east-to-west highways is necessary to maintain a “revenue-generating machine,” he said.

The move remains deeply unpopular across the rural corridor of Pennsylvania that I-80 runs through, and all four of Mercer County’s state legislators are members of an anti-tolling group called The Alliance To Stop I-80 Tolling, said Gerhart.

U.S. Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, Erie, D-3rd District, also opposes the tolling plan, she said in a statement Tuesday.

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