Posted on 07/31/2009 12:23:19 PM PDT by Born Conservative
A Pennsylvania Turnpike spokesman calls it a "fork in the road," but it might be a giant financial pothole that PennDOT is approaching.
The turnpike yesterday transferred $225 million to the state for highway projects and public transit, the first of four payments scheduled for the fiscal year under Act 44, the transportation funding law enacted in 2007.
The $900 million in annual payments will shrink to $450 million in the fiscal year that starts next July if the state fails to win federal approval to impose tolls on Interstate 80, or come up with some other revenue source.
That would sharply curtail road and bridge repairs and trigger new financial emergencies at transit agencies like the Port Authority and Philadelphia's SEPTA.
"We've got one more year of payments until we come to a fork in the road," turnpike spokesman Carl DeFebo said.
The Federal Highway Administration refused to approve I-80 tolls in September, but state and turnpike officials are preparing to revive talks with the new administration.
"It's a new policy group. There are new philosophies about these things," Mr. DeFebo said.
Jordan Clark, chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Howard, Centre County, a leading foe of I-80 tolls, said the new administration is likely to be less receptive to the proposal.
"I would say they have to rethink that," he said, adding that former President George W. Bush's transportation secretary, Mary Peters, "would toll your driveway if you let her."
Mr. Clark said regardless of the policy makers, the state does not meet federal criteria for tolling I-80, the 311-mile east-west highway that crosses the state's midsection.
(Excerpt) Read more at postgazette.com ...
I thought it was already... its toll in NY and Mass
IIR.
I-80 in PA is the worst rural interstate in America. You can be stuck in single lane construction traffic for 30 or more miles at a stretch.
That's I-90.
The Penna. Turnpike, which is Interstate 76 and 276 through Penna., is tolled. Interstate 80 parallels the Turnpike but it is not tolled.
Tolling I-80 meets ABSOLUTELY NONE Of the regulatory requirements of the program to turn public roads private, of course, what does the rule of law have to do with Fast Eddie and Fauxbama?
I'm kind of surprised - pleasantly so - that the Republicans are standing their ground on cutting the budget to show some respect for the struggling taxpayers who have to live within a budget.
Good for them! Sorry that some of my friends are left without paychecks right now, but we're trying to help them out as best as we can.
Time for Pennsylvania politicians to show their support by rolling back their pay increases and cutting per diem and other fringe benefits!
I-80 does not pass through NY or MA.
I tend to disagree. I-81 (just try to drive from the NYS border to Scranton, PA) surely is worse than I-80.
Although PA certainly must get the state trophy for worst interstate.
Just as bad, perhaps. I used to drive that stretch a lot when I lived in CT. Scranton is a pit.
I’m glad my kids and I are no longer traveling back & forth between Texas, Arkansas (college) and Massachusetts!
I doubt it. I-80 ends in New Jersey; it doesn’t go through Mass or NY.
Last time I drove on it, it was new. It was a fine road. They must never have done maintenance on it. At that time the toll road was terrible, narrow, rough, expensive, etc.
I somehow got I80 mixed up with its big brother I90.
Wonder how the Mass Pike is holding up these days.
I assume that some new crook is in charge now (Billy B?)..
Toll road= politician license to steal
More government run urban public works paid for by the taxpayer who has to foot the bill for all of the corrupt, union infested socialist failures from garbage collection to SEPTA to AMTRAK.
It will never end
No - I80 starts at George Washington Bridge in NJ and goes
west. Still free (for now) in NJ
I guess I would like to know why Pennsylvania doesn't get whatever Minnesota gets for highway maintenance from the Feds.
NO NEW TAXES ANYWHERE! There are already state and federal taxes on highway fuels. They should be spent on the roads; not on "social needs." (Does anyone else remember "Bust the highway trust"?)
ML/NJ
Well like all Democrats, Fast Eddie and his accomplices see every truck and car that takes 80 instead of 76 (PA Turnpike) as stealing from them, so they want to make it a toll as well.
80 Doesn’t remotely meet the requirements to be turned into a toll road, which is why the request was rejected and should have been, but of course rules and process mean nothing in the Fauxbama era.
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