Posted on 04/02/2018 7:15:39 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Elizabeth Zemba of Mt. Pleasant, a daily Pennsylvania Turnpike traveler, turned to art and creativity to express frustration with the highway's ever-rising tolls.
She created an Internet meme.
A photo of a turnpike tollbooth is overlaid with the logo: "Pennsylvania Turnpike re-inventing highway robbery since 2009."
For many, annual turnpike toll increases simply have become too much to bear.
Two weeks ago, a coalition of truckers and motorists advocates filed a class action suit against the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, PennDOT and Gov. Tom Wolf, seeking to recoup "excessive fees" that went to underwrite projects other than the operation of the turnpike. Such fees, they claimed, were a violation of the U.S. Constitution's commerce clause.
The truckers groups contend federal interstate commerce laws specify that turnpike tolls can only be used to maintain or expand the 359-mile highway.
For decades, the turnpike was the perfect place for powerful Pennsylvania lawmakers to park politically connected friends and contractors.
Court archives and various independent investigations detail the history of corruption, nepotism and cronyism in the operations of America's first superhighway from 1957 through 2014.
But it wasn't until 2007 that state lawmakers, reluctant to pass new taxes or lease the turnpike to a private bidder, added what some travelers refer to as highway robbery to the mix when they passed Act 44. The act required the commission to divert at least $450 million a year to PennDOT for the next 50 years.
The plan called for tolling Interstate 80, which the federal government later rejected. However, the annual payments to PennDOT are continuing.
(Excerpt) Read more at triblive.com ...
Last Fall I was on the PA Turnpike with a friend driving, and as we entered somewhere near the DE line, she couldn’t get over to the ticket booth lane, a large truck blocked her ability to change lanes, so we were in an EZ-Pass line, and she didn’t have an EZ pass. When we got off the Pike she was charged as if she’d gotten on at the far west end, @ Pittsburgh ... fee was $51 and change. Should have been @ $10 if she could have changed lanes.
sure enough we got a big bill in the mail...luckily we were able to get out of most of it....
bastards...
its creeping into the west...Washington has an extremely busy road north and south, the 405, except you can pay extra to go on the "reserved" lane for those who want to go fast...
this govt confiscation of our money will never ever end...
That’s an amazing story. Definitely nothing like that around the Tri-Cities!
One thing about that particular section of the PA turnpike ... if you get onto the Turnpike at Cranberry (about 15 miles east of New Castle), you don’t get charged anything heading west to Ohio. They hit you with that $5 toll heading back into the state. Technically, the toll is $2.50 in each direction ... They did studies back ~ 2000 and found that they were spending more money maintaining booths on that 25 mile stretch of roads and that most traffic that went west ultimately came back into PA.
I’m sure the proliferation of EZ Pass will mean that those old booths will reopen and they’ll keep that $5 toll, but that $5 is not as bad as it seems at first.
I live in AZ and drive out to visit my son in CA. I am always amazed at the “freeways” in CA that have separate lanes for the toll roads that supposedly bypass some of the traffic on the regular roadways.
Even here in AZ, just a few years ago, they floated the idea of having toll roads but it didn’t get anywhere, at least that time.
I think the gas tax in Massachusetts is about $.50/gallon (state and fed combined). If you have a car getting 30 mpg and drive a typical 15,000 miles/year, you would only spend a total of $250/year on gas taxes.
The $700/year toll bill seems completely outrageous to me. I think it would make a lot more sense to just raise the gas tax a bit and forget about all this tolling nonsense.
flr
What are the 3 biggest problems with living in Philadalphia, and where did you move to?
Thanks,
Political corruption. Taxes. Loss of manufacturing base.
Moved to the Carolinas. Now in Tennessee. Great industrial base. Low taxes. Some corruption but nowhere near the disgusting mess of Philadelphia and Montgomery county.
Despite experts of the 80’s and 90’s, a region is only as healthy as it’s manufacturing base. Financial and service industries inevitably show that without the third stool leg of manufacturing, the economic health of a region suffers.
Southside of Chicago? A wasteland if I ever saw one. Lived in Chicago and traveled through for many years on my way to family in Wisconsin. My greatest fear was breaking down on the south side of Chicago, anywhere between Gary, IN and the Loop. Back in the day I knew the city pretty good. God bless you for making a positive impact in a very struggling area.
The flip side of this is that travelers have options, too ... and I'm sure the PA Turnpike has reached the point where the tolls are chasing motorists away. The Turnpike may get less total revenue today than they did a couple of years ago. I used to take the Turnpike regularly, but once the toll reached a certain level I decided that it wasn't worthwhile for me to pay the toll to save my time anymore ... so now I use a slower parallel route with no toll instead.
Thanks Tol,
As you know, I’m the first to support increasing the gas tax provided that the money actually went to highways and wasn’t instead used as a slush fund.
Obviously that seems like a tall order for most of today’s politicians.
I’m paying $10 per DAY in central Florida. $200 a month and my alternative is triple the time it takes to get to work or move closer. Oh, and our oh-so-benevolent government is putting a toll on INTERSTATE 4 going through Orlando. The Central Florida Expressway Authority has always been corrupt.
That’s better than what I ran into in Delaware. Years ago I was in Newark, Delaware for work. I decided to go over the border to Maryland to get something to eat. Being unfamiliar with the area, I didn’t realize that there was a $4 toll to leave Delaware, and another $4 toll to come back.
I used to live in the far south side neighborhood of Hegewisch, where Chicago ends. It was okay — gritty and blue-collar, but not shot to hell like most of the south side is. I am now in northwest Indiana — better, but still a wasteland politically. I see a few positive signs - the two old ladies who run the hardware store in Hegewisch always have conservative talk on the radio, and I have seen a few Gadsden flags flying.
Yep, I peeled out of there, which I had loved for many decades, shortly after you did. I was gone before they declared part of Spruce Street a “gayborhood” and threw the Boy Scouts out of their building on the Ben Franklin Parkway because no gays. (If only City Council had waited a couple more years until BSA President Rex Tillerson allowed gay scouts, the BSA might have kept their beautiful building.) I’ve been long gone before UPenn installed Joe Biden on faculty and took down the portrait of Shakespeare from the English department. Don’t get me started on the parking fees.
Sad what a once very patriotic City, the birthplace of our Constitution, became.
I used to be a field service rep. My territory was from the Navy yard / Waterfront to The route 113 highway, and from the south point being Chester County. All of Philadelphia, Montgomery, and Bucks County. Ending at the Berks County line. My home was in Chestnut Hill. I sure do miss Wawa, Amoroso’s rolls, McNallys Bar, Bookbinders, and Skippack Village. Peddlers Village too.
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