Posted on 12/31/2019 4:45:29 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Pennsylvania Turnpike users can expect 6% toll increases in 2020 and 2021 but then — if the state Legislature follows through with plans to change how the state funds public transit — the rate of annual increases gradually will go down to 3% in 2028.
Nikolaus Grieshaber, the turnpike’s chief financial officer, outlined the agency’s financial future recently in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about the 6% toll hike that begins Jan. 5. The increase marks the 12th year in a row that rates have gone up and will increase the fee for a car traveling the length of the state to $61.80 from the current $58.30 for cash customers, and to $44.20 from $41.70 for E-ZPass users who several times had smaller increases to boost the use of the prepaid cards.
Mr. Grieshaber said the agency needs the rate hikes the next two years to cover the cost of debt service, which is about $750 million a year. That’s more than half of the turnpike’s annual revenue of about $1.4 billion.
“More than half of our revenue is going into debt service,” he said. “We have a lot of debt to pay down.
A major reason for the growing debt has been the turnpike’s obligation to pay $450 million a year to the state Department of Transportation to help pay for public transit. It borrows most of that money every year because it doesn’t have the cash on hand to pay it.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
Remember Rendell’s push to make I-80 a toll road?
Corbett also increased our gas taxes like 35 percent and bowed to the teachers unions...gave no reason to convince any voters to vote Republican.
I can’t wait until we all have hover crafts and we don’t need roads.
I used to drive from the DC area to northern Indiana/western Michigan on a regular basis for close to 40 years. For a long time, the toll on the PA Turnpike from Breezewood to the Ohio line (161 miles) was $6.40; the toll for the entire Ohio Turnpike (241 miles) was $3.50; and the toll from the Ohio line to South Bend on the Indiana Toll Road (80 miles) was $2.00.
Now, the toll from Breezewood to Ohio is about $20.00; the toll in Ohio is something like $13.75; and the toll in Indiana is over $4.00.
Living over 30 miles west of DC these days, I take I-66 to I-81 to VA 37 to US 522 to VA 127 to WV 29 to MD 51, connecting in Cumberland, MD with I-68, then 75 miles west to I-79, then 45 miles north to I-70, then west to Columbus, then use I-270 northwest to US 33 to OH 115 to US 30 to the east outskirts of Fort Wayne, then I-469 to I-69 to the first exit, then left a couple of miles to IN 3 to Kendallville, left turn on US 6 to Ligonier, then turn onto US 33 to Elkhart. Total tolls for this routing: $0.00.
It’s been years since I drove the PA Turnpike. Me recollection was of a pothole strewn road with crappy service facilities. Paying to drive on it was an insult.
Den of Communist thieves.
Yes, that total scumbag, I remember it well. It was shocking when the elitists lost this fight...for now.
IIRC, the same happened with the Garden State Parkway here in NJ; the tolls were supposed to be used to pay off the construction bonds, then they just became permanent.
Thankfully more and more tolls are automated; we’d reached a point where tolls were paying for little more than the toll collectors themselves. There is still another bureaucracy to administer the electronic tolls, though.
The streets must be paved with gold. No potholes, pavement even, lights in sync with the traffic etc
Or am I wrong?....
It’s part of the reason your tolls are going up now. The law passed under Rendell’s watch, Act 44, mandated the turnpike to give $450 million per year to PennDOT, whether I-80 was approved for tolls run by the turnpike or not. (If I-80 had been approved for tolls, the payment would have gone up to $900 million per year.)
I-80 was turned down three times by the Feds for tolls, and ever since, the turnpike has been paying that $450 million per year to PennDOT. Some language in a succeeding law, Act 89, drops this amount to $50 million per year in 2023.
In any event, the turnpike issues bonds to swing that annual payment. Those bonds must be paid for, in addition to the ones issued for their construction projects. Thus, the manic toll hikes.
That's why I put "unions" in the keywords section.
The recent gas tax hikes came after the turnpike was mandated to issue the payments to PennDOT, and bonds are used to make those payments. What’s interesting is that a smidge of gas tax revenue does indeed go to the turnpike. So it’s like some money is going around in circles.
Route 22 will get you across the state. But I think it takes a bit longer.
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