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Posted on 12/13/2021 1:44:45 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The Pennsylvania Turnpike will install overhead tolling gantries on nine bridges that the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is considering for tolls.
The work will be part of the turnpike’s $125 million project to install open-road tolling to replace the former toll booths along its 450-mile system.
The possibility of PennDOT adding tolls to bridges — including the Interstate 79 bridge near Bridgeville — to raise money for their replacement is still under consideration, but the agency is finalizing an agreement with the turnpike to collect tolls.
The turnpike is an obvious choice to operate the collection system — something PennDOT hasn’t done. The gantries are expected to record payments from motorists of $1 to $2 each time they use the bridges if they have an E-ZPass transponder or take a license plate photo and send the owner a bill by mail if they don’t.
State Rep. Jason Ortitay, R-Bridgeville, and representatives from South Fayette, Bridgeville and Collier announced during a news conference Thursday, Nov. 11, 2021, in South Fayette that they have filed a lawsuit in Commonwealth Court to block PennDOT from implementing plans to charge tolls on nine major bridges cross the state. One of the bridges includes the I-79 bridge near the Bridgeville interchange.
The turnpike will turn the receipts over to PennDOT. Turnpike spokesman Carl DeFebo said PennDOT will reimburse the turnpike for the cost of the gantries, collection equipment, customer service and any other staff cost, but the agency won’t make any money on the deal.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
Hey, in 1953 when they proposed building the Ohio Turnpike, they said that after 1983 they would stop collecting tolls. Guess what . . . . . . (fill in the blank)
We don’t tolerate this crap down here in the South. Only place I’ve seen toll roads is in Florida.
Yep, another way to pull the money out of your pockets, not maintain much, and then stuff their pockets. I love politicians. In Illinois, the toll system was put in to pay for the initial project, then they were to be taken out (50 years ago). Guess what,they’re still in place milking drivers every chance they get, and raising the fees every few years. It’s a total joke and criminal theft operation. Look up the I-Pass System in Illinois, especially the complaints from out of staters who end up on the toll road, don’t know it until it’s too late, and then pay fines on late tolls ten times the charges. Nauseating.
Another year you will be taxed on your odometer reading collected thru Google Maps. The Era of big government has been stifled and it wants to hit us hard.
Like those busses full of school kids who attended the pro-life rally in DC a few years back.
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Illinois - toll free by ‘73!
Too bad they didn’t tell the citizens of Illinois that they MEANT 2073.
The Illinois State Tollway is operated by organized crime - that is, by Illinois state government.
If I am going east as far as Breezewood, I will gladly spend the extra 20 minutes on U.S. 30
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In the winter when the snow flies, I think many people would be freaked out driving on U.S. 30 for the first 15/20 miles to the east of Breezewood.
Virginia is part of the South and has some of the most expensive toll roads in the country, like the Dulles Greenway, which costs about $1 per mile.
In 1982, my grandparents (RIP) took me to the Pittsburgh area to show me places where they grew up, like Sewickley and Ben Avon. On the way back, they took Route 30 to Breezewood instead of the turnpike. That took quite a while, but I’m sure the road has been improved since then.
One of the main reasons that the main toll plaza on the Greenway going west costs so much is that a buck fifty is added for leaving the Dulles Toll Road.
Right you are- I used to know a gentleman who worked for the tollway, collecting the money from individual toll booths. Not to say this is true of all tollway employees, but he told me himself he was a committed communist.
I believed it, too.
Tolls are as ubiquitous in my new state as the greenery that helped give Florida its name. For example, I drove from Gulf Breeze to Pensacola Beach over the Sikes Bridge (CR 399) and suddenly saw at the end, the dreaded toll booths! Fortunately, it only cost a dollar, and there wasn’t a toll going back.
The Garcon Point Bridge (FL 281), on the other hand, was $4.50, in spite of DeSantis’s intentions to make it $2.75. I guess that one has to go through the legislature.
Not by much, at least as I remember a few years ago.
It isn't that bad in the daytime if you were raised in North Dakota as I was . . .
Plus the people who freak out don't drive it, so less traffic.
That will really bugger up traffic in Bridgeville when the yinzers exit I-79 and use Bridgeville's surface streets to avoid the toll.
I still remember when, in the mid 90s, they finally added gates to the toll plazas on the Dulles Toll Road. On one side of the toll plaza was a stack of fresh gates. On the other side was a stack of broken gates.
Guessing that a lot people just ran through those toll gates without paying.
they tried with GA 400 in Atlanta for a couple of years but they got beat up so bad they had to open it...
Smart of the state to provide their employees subscriptions to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and likely most of the other papers in Pennsylvania. That way they can post pro-toll comments while others, including those who want to respond, most pay to be subscribers.
Watch out, they’re getting better!!!
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