Posted on 03/18/2010 6:25:00 AM PDT by IbJensen
Like it or not, the tolling of highways will be part of how we fund our roads and bridges in the future. That said, there are two good reasons why the plan to erect tollbooths on Interstate-80 should be rejected.
Tolls are appropriate because they are imposed directly upon travelers for their use of roads. However, the plan to toll I-80 represents more than a toll. It is also a tax on drivers because more than $160 million in toll dollars from the highway will be funneled to mass transit systems, primarily in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Taxing drivers in the northern tier to subsidize mass transit users in the southeast and southwest is bad public policy.
An even stronger reason to reject the I-80 tolling plan, however, is that the highway would be handed over to the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC). The PTC has justly earned its reputation as a haven for patronage, nepotism, inefficiency and corruption.
Corruption. According to the federal conviction of former Philadelphia state Sen. Vincent Fumo, former PTC Chairman Mitchell Rubin received $150,000 in state Senate consulting fees for doing little to no legitimate work. The consulting contract overlapped with Mr. Rubin’s tenure at the PTC. In 2003, Mr. Rubin was discovered to have had 214 parking tickets (bearing fines of nearly $10,000) dismissed. Mr. Rubin has since been terminated and is currently under investigation by the FBI.
Inefficiency. The Turnpike has the nation’s second highest tolls and remains drastically overstaffed. For every mile of turnpike, the PTC has more than four employees and one senior-level manager. PennDOT, meanwhile, has one employee for every three miles of roadway. If you exclude tollbooth operations, the Turnpike has nearly three employees per mile.
Wasteful Spending. In 2007, the PTC used toll revenues to fund almost $400,000 for lobbying in Washington, D.C. It spent an additional $300,000 lobbying state legislators. Mr. Rubin billed the commission for 12 meals totaling $12,522 (over $1,000 a meal). One $1,869.79 meal in Nantucket included $125 for Beluga caviar, $76 for quail salads, and $46-sirloins. Mr. Rubin billed it all to the commission, except the $1,050 bottle of wine.
Patronage. According to a legislative audit report in the late 1990s, the PTC could save millions of dollars by instituting competitive bidding for bond counsel work. The PTC has refused and insisted on granting “sole source” contracts based on political relationships.
Putting all other arguments for and against the tolling of I-80 aside, under no circumstances should the PTC be given any additional dominion over Pennsylvania’s transportation infrastructure. Giving the PTC another pet project would be bad not only for Pennsylvania, but for the Interstate System that has served the United States so well over the years.
Wake up you folks in the Keystone State!
And have you seen how much toll collectors make? It is nuts! If it was up to me, I'd ban all human toll collecting.
as more tolls come to be, as the article suggest, then the gas taxes and license plate fees will definatley go down ,Right?
And in the case of tolling I-80 in Penna. specifically, all that money would be going to fund transit systems in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Very little of the money will be used to pay for I-80 itself.
Wake up you folks in the Keystone State!
If they were awake around here we never would have elected a Philly Mob Thug to two terms as Governor.
They ever here of high speed cameras? They are much cheaper than building toll booths for people to sit in.
PennDOT prepares stage for upcoming Acid Rock Stock.
PennDOT announced that the full complement of heavy metal and acid rock tie-dye-hards will be on hand when the transportation agency opens its own Acid Rock Highway, I-99. The highway is slated to open, “some time in the near-distant future or thereabouts.”
Paul Preston, publicist for the I-99 project, said the grand opening party for the highway will include the remaining members of Iron Butterfly who will help launch the highway with a concert and a new rendition of the 17-minute heavy metal epic, In-A-Gadda-Davita.
Preston said the band has promised to re-work the song with new lyrics. Should-A-Been-Done-Awhile-Ago will serve as the anthem of the I-99 project, he added.
A local band, the Vengeful Spirits of Dead Commuters, will be one of the opening acts for Iron Butterfly.
Man Working will also perform at Acid RockStock. The five-member band is composed entirely of PennDOT employees and contractors. One guy plays a guitar and the rest stand around, drink coffee, joke and look at him occasionally.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held after the concert. PennDOT adds that the ribbon-cutting is expected to last eight years.
Lived there for 2 years. What I found was a state of bloated bureaucracy filled to the brim with overlap and duplication and run by the unions.
The state has 501 school districts!! Some school districts only have a single high school. Every township has its own police department. Some of these townships are within larger cities with their own police departments. From where I sit, this is waste in the extreme.
I loved PA. It is a marvelous place with beautiful scenery and friendly people, but I glad to get back to the south where efficiency actually exists in government to some degree. It is really no wonder why the state is broke and looking to soak their citizens with more taxes, tolls, and levies. When Governor Ed questioned the need for so many school districts, He was slapped down and promptly dropped it.
Smoke this one, Willie.
We all remember most of the horrible Supreme Court decisions: Dred Scott, Roe v. Wade, Kelo. But this is the fruit of one which should rank right down there with those, the “one-man-one-vote” decision that overthrew the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which had shown the same wisdom as the U.S. constitution: a lower house elected from districts proportional to population, and an upper house with equal representation for the counties of the Commonwealth.
The result is democracy run rampant with Philly and Pittsburgh imposing taxes on the folks in Clinton and Clearfield Counties (among others) because the rural counties effectively have no voice in the legislature.
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