Posted on 09/24/2021 5:58:54 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation took the next step toward replacing and charging tolls on as many as nine bridges Monday, but motorists won’t pay to use the bridges until 2023 at the earliest.
PennDOT announced it has selected three firms to submit proposals for finishing the design of the nine bridges and propose whether to bundle them together under one contract, replace them individually or a combination of the two. The department’s goal is to turn the bridges over to private firms to design and replace them, then maintain them for 30 years with the tolls covering the costs.
Tolls haven’t been set but are expected to be $1 or $2.
When it announced the nine candidates for replacement under the public-private partnership, the department said it didn’t have the funds to replace the bridges and considered the public-private partnership the quickest way to keep the critical spans open without weight restrictions. The Interstate 79 bridge in Bridgeville is one of the candidates for replacement using tolls.
Michael Bonini, director of PennDOT’s P3 office, said the state received qualifications from four potential teams interested in submitting proposals for the bridge work. After analyzing the qualifications to determine whether they had the financial backing and technical expertise to complete the work, the department has asked three of them to submit formal proposals.
Now, each team will meet with the state to review the department’s draft of a request for formal proposals. The state plans to issue the request for proposals in December and have them due by late January or early February.
The state expects to choose a development team by the end of March, Mr. Bonini said, then work with them through the rest of the year to determine which bridges should be bundled in one package.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
PING!
There is never enough money for these greedy, trough-feeding pigs!
Pennsylvania has the second highest fuel taxes in the nation but still cannot maintain or expand its infrastructure that has fallen behind population changes.
We keep hearing promises and see no results.
How long before you have to show your vax papers to cross a bridge or get onto an Interstate Highway? How long until the police randomly stop people to check for vax papers under the guise of public safety? Asking for a friend.
Shhh... Don’t give the Rats any ideas.
Of course, they deserve it for insisting on working rather than collecting a government check. < / sarcasm >
then maintain them for 30 years with the tolls covering the costs.
When they push this through for those of you young enough to recall this “plan” wait till the 30 years pass by and wait for the tolls to go away! I predict you will find they will not and in fact they will be far higher than they were at the beginning. The governthiefs NEVER let a funding source go away, NEVER.
Keep voting demo-RAT people, this is what you get!!!!!!!!
Yeah, right. That won't last long. It's $6 to traverse one of the bridges in the Bay Area.
All automatic now - a reader scans your license plate and you get the bill in the mail. Don't know what happens with all the illegals driving cars that are not registered - with stolen registration tags that I pay yearly for.
PA already has the second highest gasoline tax in America. That’s not enough for these POSs. We already pay for our shitty roads via taxes. Now we get to pay taxes and tolls.
PennDOT employees are lazy ass government employees with incredible salaries, benefits and pensions. Have you every seen one work his ass off fixing a road? No. They are always standing around.
They just want another way to keep more of our tax dollars to enrich themselves. We get to pay thrice: state income taxes, gasoline taxes and now tolls.
How the country has changed. I remember when they removed the toll booths on the 520 floating bridge in Seattle when it was paid for.
Now these sort of tolls are indefinite and they even want to apply tolls to existing bridges for whatever excuse they can come up with just to get the free money.
I’ve driven in almost every country within these united states. There are a lot I’ll never see again, nor do I want to. Most are northeastern states, but the big one is California.
But then, I’m 67 and have a bit of a “been there, done that” feeling.
All westbound traffic, going into PA from NJ, has been paying a toll on the Walt Whitman bridge (I-76) since the early 90’s.
Current toll is $5 for cars/light trucks. Commercial vehicles pay $7.50 PER AXLE just to get into PA.
Tolls are going to be everywhere.
Allegheny County (home to Pittsburgh, and me), used to have tolls on bridges decades ago... Tolls used to be used many years ago (100 years+ IIRC) on several roads.
https://eh.net/encyclopedia/turnpikes-and-toll-roads-in-nineteenth-century-america/
The difference between now and then, though, is we have crooks in office who misuse gasoline tax money, and other road taxes, then also add on tolls. Men of early America would be appalled at our governance.
The dumbest part of the article is that the main topic - a possible nine bridges that might get tolls - with one exception are not identified anywhere in the article.
Anyone who has ever spent much time moving in and around Pittsburgh knows that crossing bridges is something you do frequently.
Unless the tolls were collected without human toll collectors, with an “EZpass” type system that can catch the vehicle ID as it moves quickly by, I can imagine traffic congestion will easily increase. But then there will be the issue of how much more costly driving around Pittsburgh will get, particularly for delivery type outfits and any service type outfit or person making frequent trips around the city in a work day. Even then that system has to accurately account for vehicles that do not have an “EZpass” type account, with a transponder in the vehicle associated with the account. I know New York and New Jersey have such a system but (1) I have no idea how it handles vehicles without a transponder that are vehicles licensed in other states, and (2) how much that will be an issue in the Pittsburgh area with the nine bridges under consideration for tolls.
Instead of tolls the state could permit the county that includes Pittsburgh to have an additional countywide gasoline tax. At least would spread the cost across a wider base, even though that contains the negative aspect of a tax on some folks who may never use any of the nine bridges.
It would almost certainly be till by plate/ez pass.. won’t be any toll booths
It would almost certainly be till by plate/ez pass.. won’t be any toll booths
However it will be stupid because it will just make traffic on 50 to go around it a mess.
Toll roads, at least out here, abandoned toll booths long ago. Either a transponder in your car records the toll or a camera snaps a photo of your license plate. If you don’t pay in five days you get dinged hard. So there’s no slowing traffic.
I’m not supporting this idea, just pointing out there’s ways around adding congestion.
I also understand the pennsyvania turnpike is the most expensive road to drive on in the world. Crazy!
Getting into Bridgeville from I-79 to 50 will be even more of a mess than it is now. I’m glad I won’t have to drive that on a regular basis like I used to.
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