There is a lot of backlash to the legislation to add tolls to Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania.
- The legislators in and around State College suddenly went NIMBY voted against the plan because it had the possibility of tolls in their area.
- This week in the U.S. House, Rep. John Peterson, R-Pleasantville, and Rep. Phil English, R-Erie added an amendment to the transportation bill prohibiting the use of federal funds (CDT) for the conversion. That may not make a difference because there are other ways to funds toll booth construction, but it sends a message.
- Proponents of the toll plan like Ed Rendell, the Democratic governor from Philadelphia, are again threatening to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike (Post-Gazette). The whole thing has the typical Pennsylvania vs. Philadelphia connotations (sound familiar Virginia residents?) because some of the funding from tolls would go to mass transit. Call it a hunch, but Philadelphia (and probably Pittsburgh too) area taxpayers are paying more than their share already, so I don’t feel too bad for the rest of the Commonwealth on this one.
Of course, this mess could have probably avoided if there had been leadership (I’m looking in your direction, Bud Shuster) and a better run PennDOT, but hindsight is 20-20 and those two things seem impossible anyway. In the real world, Pennsylvania should have passed an increase in the gas tax instead of cynically trying to pass the burden of funding strictly onto out-of-state travelers. If the Federal Highway Administration says no to I-80 tolls, which it hopefully will on general principle, Pennsylvania might have to a gas tax anyway. As much I would enjoy the irony of Pennsylvania as “The Tollbooth State”, I would rather a precedent for tolling interstates built with federal highway trust fund money not be set.
