Toll enthusiasts can hit the road

Star Ledger ^ | August 16, 2007 | Paul Mulshine

[Coleus]

Last weekend I was vacation ing in the Poconos and I got talking to some of the locals. They were pretty steamed. It seems that Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell is pushing a scheme to im pose tolls on the Pennsylvania sec tion of Interstate 80. I'm pretty steamed, too. If Pennsylvanians want to charge tolls on the roads they built with their own money, such as the Pennsylvania Turnpike, that's none of my business. But I-80 was built with my tax dollars under a program begun by the esteemed Republican president Dwight Eisenhower.

Now this Democrat wants to use the road as a cash cow. He isn't even pretending, as politicians usually do, that the purpose of the tolls is to fix up the road. Instead "Fast Eddie," as Pennsylvanians call their governor, wants to make a quick buck off the road to fund mass transit in Philly and Pittsburgh. You can imagine how well that's going over in rural northern Pennsylvania. Several members of Congress are fighting the plan in the House.

Rep. Phil English, a Republican, succeeded in getting a rider inserted in an appropriations bill that would ban the tolls. But the bill needs to win Senate approval and be signed by President Bush. Here's where the plot thickens.

You would expect Bush as a Republican to oppose the efforts of Rendell and our own Democratic governor, Jon Corzine, to balance their budgets through that form of fiscal trickery we have come to know as "asset monetization." Like Rendell, Corzine also flirted with the idea of putting tolls on our sec tions of I-80 and I-78, but Jersey drivers made it plain to Corzine that this was political suicide. So Corzine has to content himself for now with making a buck off our existing toll

[Judges Gone Wild]

The tentacles of the Security and Prosperity Partnership are long.

[Rumplemeyer]

I don’t think these jackals can do it.
The Interstate Highways are owned by the Feds, the states take money to maintain them, construction is paid on a 10%/90% formula, the states contribute 10% and the Feds 90%.

[org.whodat]

The oil countries and the religion of piece is trying to buy every road and politician in america.

[Gay State Conservative]

Study the long and less-than-illustrious history of the Massachusetts Turnpike and you’ll know that *nothing* is impossible when it comes to this nation’s highways.

[Radix]

I believe it is the case that if a State collects Federal funds in order to maintain an Interstate highway then they are not allowed to charge a toll for passage.

Connecticut maintained toll booths on I95 for years until so many folks kept slamming into the collection booths and creating deadly fireballs that they finally gave up the practice.

That was not because it was not lucrative, au contraire, but more because it was damaging political reputations and costing votes. They stopped the ridiculous 55 MPH speed limit as well years later, for similar reasons.

Here in Massachusetts the voters are so abominably stupid and/or self interested that the I90 highway (Mass Turnpike) tolls continue to go up despite the fact that the original bonds were paid off decades ago.

[SabianKinslow]

I have been saying the same thing about paying tolls on I95 through Delaware for years. No one listens.

[brityank]

I have been saying the same thing about paying tolls on I95 through Delaware for years.

Back in the 70's, all of the on/off ramps from I295 south had coin buckets, as well as the toll barrier in and out of Maryland. The coin buckets got taken out after some of the college kids from UDel passed out info saying they were illegal on a federal highway, and the barrier toll jumped from Fifty Cents to a Buck.