Tolls on I-80 would contribute about $16.5 billion over the next 50 years toward statewide transportation projects, the application said.

Those tolls are a key part of a new transportation-funding plan to raise about $1 billion 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 region's economy.

The Federal Highway Administration returned the state's first effort to get permission to toll I-80 last December, citing a number of unanswered questions about finances and construction.

If the federal government does not permit tolls on I-80, SEPTA and other mass-transit agencies would get $150 million a year less than promised, and highways and bridges would get $300 million a year less - a cut of 50 percent by 2010.

That would undermine the whole funding plan for transportation adopted by the legislature last July and send the state scrambling for other ways to raise money. Options could include higher gas taxes, higher fees for motor-vehicle registrations, higher transit fares, and - Gov. Rendell's favorite - leasing the turnpike to a private operator.

Rendell wants to lease the turnpike for $12.8 billion to a Spanish toll-road operator and a U.S. investment firm for 75 years. A turnpike lease would eliminate the need to toll I-80, but the legislature has been cool to the leasing proposal.

Rendell yesterday urged U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters to approve the state's application to toll I-80 "so that Pennsylvania can reconstruct this vitally important interstate highway and satisfy the legislative intent of Act 44."

So the governor is now in the position of supporting two conflicting proposals.

"He has long believed that leasing the turnpike was the better option but compromised with the legislature when the proposal to toll I-80 gained momentum," Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo said yesterday. "The governor's bottom line has always been generating the most money possible to address the commonwealth's transportation-funding needs, and that continues to be his prime motivation."

The plan to use I-80 tolls to pay not only for I-80 operations and maintenance but also to raise money for statewide transportation projects could be a sticking point with the federal authorities. Pennsylvania is seeking authority for I-80 tolls under a federal pilot program that permits three states to place tolls on interstates (Virginia and Missouri have taken two of the slots) "for the purpose of reconstructing and rehabilitating interstate highway corridors that could not otherwise be adequately maintained or functionally improved without the collection of tolls."

Federal officials have questioned how the state could describe as "operating costs" the payments that are to be made from I-80 tolls to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to fund highway and bridge repairs around the state.

About 30 percent of the money from I-80 tolls would go to fund statewide projects, according to the application submitted yesterday.

That would amount to $16.5 billion over the next 50 years, the application said.

The state's plan envisions as many as 10 automated toll-collection points 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 two 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 slated to increase about 3 percent per year, for both I-80 and the turnpike.

"We're confident that we've made a compelling case for FHWA approval," Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission chief executive officer Joseph Brimmeier said in a statement yesterday.