Ironically, I-80 in Pennsylvania is one of the best arguments in favor of a state tolling an interstate highway -- and for the exact reason you mentioned here.
I-80 goes through sparsely populated areas, is not as heavily used as urban interstate highways in Pennsylvania, and carries a lot of through traffic that doesn't necessarily pay taxes in PA. And yet there are enormous costs to the taxpayers of PA to keep I-80 in a state of good repair.
Putting a toll on that road is an ideal way to half non-PA taxpayers help foot the bill for a public highway that they use heavily.
“Ironically, I-80 in Pennsylvania is one of the best arguments in favor of a state tolling an interstate highway. Putting a toll on that road is an ideal way to half non-PA taxpayers help foot the bill for a public highway that they use heavily.”
Yep, and they would have tolls TODAY, if that was THE EXTENT of the scheme. But it WAS NOT, the state wanted to divert HUGE AMOUNTS of the toll revenue to SEMPTA and others that have NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TOLL ROAD.
For that ONE REASON the feds REJECTED the proposal.’
Sorry, but MY CASE IS MADE. The tolls would have been MUCH MORE than needed for that road, and it was even too much for the feds to approve of (it violate federal law). Read some history on it. You’ll find out that toll roads are CASH COWS for nothing to do with highways...with only a small portion needed for the actual highway itself. It is the same in VIRTUALLY EVERY CASE where the tolls exceed about 2 cents per mile (for Route 80, it would have been above 10 cents...with the vast majority of the revenue going elsewhere).