subscribe to this page
I-80 toll plans moving forward
The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission will take over operation of I-80 and turn the freeway into a toll road under terms of a 50-year lease signed late Monday.The lease with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation was signed just before a midnight deadline set by the legislature. Tolls could be in place by 2010 if permission is obtained from the Federal Highway Administration.
The state's two highway agencies made formal application for that approval on Saturday. In the application, the turnpike agency said it planned to double the money available for I-80 repairs and upgrades over the next decade to $2 billion.
The state's plan envisions as many as 10 toll booths between New Jersey and Ohio, with an initial cost of about $25 for motorists to drive the entire 311-mile highway.
The I-80 tolls would be set at the turnpike's rate, which is anticipated to be about 8 cents per mile in three years, for cars. That would represent a 33 percent increase from the current turnpike toll rate, which now averages about 6 cents per mile. (Tolls would be 23 cents per mile for trucks weighing 30,001 to 45,000 pounds.)
Tolls on I-80 are part of a plan created last July by the legislature to raise about $965 million more per year over the next 10 years for highways, bridges and mass transit. The new law, Act 44, has been under fire from northern Pennsylvanians along the I-80 corridor who fear it will hurt the economy of the region.
November 26, 2006
By 2043, we're being told, there won't just be 300 million of us -- there will be 400 million. With the roadways around our metropolitan regions increasingly clogged, how will we ever stay mobile?
Depending on the tea leaves you choose, some vividly contrasting futures emerge.
Vision No. 1 is ``stay the course.'' Keep driving as we have. In 1980, 64.4 percent of us drove to work alone; in 2000 it was 75.7 percent, according to the Transportation Research Board's recent ``Commuting in America'' survey by Alan Pisarski.
...
This is the hottest new trend, discussed intensely by governors, state transportation officials and state legislators. Multibillion-dollar roadway investments by private financing firms are increasing fast. We've reached what transportation expert C. Kenneth Orski calls a critical ``tipping point.''
...
But still, says Thomas Downs, president of the Eno Transportation Foundation, politicians will have to face deep public doubts about selling off public assets or explaining why they condemn peoples' property to build for-profit roads.
...
So is there a Vision No. 3? Yes, there's a set of tea leaves that says so -- the vote of many Americans earlier this month to support new and expanded public transit. Transit proposals with cumulative value of $40 billion were approved from Rhode Island to Minnesota, Missouri to Utah to California.
My next column will ask: Is Vision No. 3 a sentimental throwback, or a powerful alternative for this century?