Seems like the obvious step is to raise SEPTA tolls by $120 million instead of having a cross-country trucker subsidize commuter fares in Philly.
So 350 million from the tolls will go for transportation
350 million originally going for transportation will now go for something else
No tolls1
The taxes never stop coming. Philly’s mayor Nutter is proposing a 2 cent per ounce tax on soda. Next is the air we breathe!
The tolls would go to mass transit projects in Philly and Pittsburgh, neither of which comes within 100 miles of I-80.
Elections have consequences, folks! Stop the bull$&it that there is no difference between Dems and Republicans!
Don't know about the local economy but tolls will definitely screw up surface traffic along state highways that parallel the interstate. It happens here in Ohio-- evey time they raise the turnpike tolls, local traffic gets worse. Big semis barreling down country roads. Great.
One thing I hate about these long distance toll roads is the toll plaza rest areas. The exits are few and far between and if you want to stop and get gas and something to eat, you have to use a toll plaza or pay extra tolls to get on and off the highway. The toll plazas are overpriced with limited choices and the McDonalds doesn’t accept coupons. Their prices were significantly higher than a non-toll plaza McDonalds.
The tolls are unpopular along most of the I-80 route in Pennsylvania because (1) most of that route is very rural and while it does serve east and west bound interstate travel and truck shipping, it also provides a major route between the rural towns nearest to it, and (2) the main purpose of the tolls IS NOT for I-80 and those living nearest to it, but for “mass transit” systems in the populous eastern edge of the state.
Now then, if Pennsylvania sold it’s stretch of I-80 to a private interest, a private interest who established tolls along it, then Pennsylvania could designate the tax revenue it got from that private company however it wanted to.
The biggest losers in either case are likely to be the residents of the rural towns along I-80, at least those who have come to depend on it, depend on it without tolls.
ping