Proposed I-80 tolls crucial to road projects

If Pennsylvania succeeds in adding tolls to I-80, it would close a favorite escape route from the Pennsylvania Turnpike: No longer would motorists or truckers be able to cross the state without paying a toll.

And that would make Pennsylvania one of the few states without a free interstate across it.

Whether that's good or bad depends, of course, on whether you're paying or collecting the money.

State officials, who would receive the money, argue that I-80 tolls are crucial to pay for highway, bridge, and transit projects. They see a free I-80 as a drain on the treasury.

Drivers and truckers contend that an I-80 toll would be double trouble, because they pay gas taxes to finance and maintain the road.

"It's annoying that there'd be no way of getting past Pennsylvania without a toll," said Andrew Palestine, 61, a retired Social Security Administration employee who returns to Philadelphia to visit friends and family once or twice a year from his home near Des Moines, Iowa. "From Iowa to Philadelphia, it would be the only state with two east-west toll roads. And it's not like the roads in Pennsylvania are that great, either."

Darrin Roth, highway operations director for the American Trucking Associations, said the "only states with no toll-free interstate options border to border are Massachusetts [east-west], Maine - partial tolls [north-south] - and New Jersey [north-south].

"The big difference is that those highways were built as toll roads."

In Indiana and Ohio, free I-70 runs in the same direction as the Ohio Turnpike and the Indiana Toll Road. In New York, free I-88/86 parallels the New York State Thruway. In Illinois, free I-80 parallels the East-West Tollway.

Pennsylvania followed the same model for decades with a free northern route across the state (I-80) parallel to a tolled southern route (the Pennsylvania Turnpike).

Since 2007, though, the state has sought federal permission to add tolls to I-80. Its applications were rejected in 2007 and 2008, and the state returned to the Federal Highway Administration last month with a renewed request. The state hopes to receive a decision by the end of the year.

Because I-80 was built largely with federal money, the state needs federal permission before it can add tolls.

Turnpike Commission Chief Executive Joseph Brimmeier has said he expects approval this time. At the same time, Pennsylvania congressional opponents, led by U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, a Republican from the northwestern part of the state, have moved to defeat the tolling plan.

Thompson convened a meeting Nov. 19 of seven of Pennsylvania's 19 congressional representatives with federal highway administrator Victor Mendez for a briefing on the toll plan and to reiterate the opposition of northern Pennsylvania residents and businesses.

Thompson said Mendez told the group, "We are not predisposed to one decision over another. Our intent is to follow the law the U.S. Congress put in front of us."

At the meeting were Democratic U.S. Reps. Kathy Dahlkemper, Bob Brady, Paul Kanjorski, and Chris Carney, and Republican Reps. Jim Gerlach, Bill Shuster, and Thompson.

Revenue from I-80 tolls was crucial to Act 44, the transportation-funding measure the legislature passed in 2007. Lawmakers assumed that higher tolls on the turnpike and new tolls on I-80 would provide $900 million in annual payments from the Turnpike Commission to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for projects.

For two years, the Turnpike Commission has been borrowing money to make the payments, expecting to be paid back through those tolls.

Without tolls on I-80, transportation funding from the Turnpike Commission would be cut in half, to $450 million a year, beginning in July. Among the biggest losers would be SEPTA.

The whole idea of tolling I-80, says Turnpike Commission spokesman Carl DeFebo, is to capture the revenue now lost as drivers - especially truckers - use I-80 instead of the turnpike.

"To maximize revenues, one of the key factors is to be able to toll parallel interstates," DeFebo said. "It's a benefit, not a disadvantage."

With tolls on both I-80 and the turnpike, he said, "45 percent of the state's interstate system would be self-funded. It makes a much more efficient revenue system."

He said the turnpike loses revenue from an estimated 400 trucks a day because I-80 is free.

DeFebo said Pennsylvania has "to come to grips with the fact that the gas tax was sufficient to build the interstate system, but it's not sufficient to maintain it."

And he said Pennsylvania's location puts it in a different position than other states when it comes to tolling parallel interstates.

"One of the reasons we're in a unique position is that we're in a unique position. To get to New England or New York or the Midwest, you have to pass through Pennsylvania."

He predicted other states might soon follow Pennsylvania's lead in tolling previously free interstates to increase revenue.

"People in Maryland and New York and Ohio and Indiana are looking to Pennsylvania on this," DeFebo said. "They will soon find themselves in the same situation."