Legislation to stop I-80 tolls gaining support – CDT
Backlash against tolling I-80 is gaining speed politically at the federal and state levels.
U.S. Rep. John Peterson, R-Plesantville, a fierce opponent of the I-80 toll plan, submitted legislation this week as a companion to Texas Republican U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s measure, which she introduced to prohibit tolls on federal highways.
This is good news — even though Peterson is playing up the the “rural people pay more than their share for city people” myth. By the way, An August 4 article in the Post-Gazette debunked Peterson:
In a joint news release announcing the amendment to stop the plan to toll I-80, Reps. English and Peterson said rural Pennsylvanians should not be responsible for solving statewide transportation problems.
And in a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, they wrote: “Essentially, the new transportation plan would impose excessive tolls on economically challenged rural communities which are already paying their full share of gas taxes and other fees, and transfer that revenue to more prosperous suburban communities to fund transit programs that should be supported by the communities they serve.”
A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette examination of state transportation statistics shows the opposite to be true: Money collected from the densely populated Pittsburgh and Philadelphia urban areas generates the bulk of revenue that’s spread statewide to pay for road, bridge and transit programs.
For example, Allegheny County, with 909,000, has the highest number of registered motor vehicles in the state. That also is 50 percent more than the 601,654 registered vehicles in Mercer, Venango, Clarion, Jefferson, Clearfield, Centre, Clinton and Lycoming counties combined, where I-80 passes through the 2nd and 5th Congressional Districts represented by Mr. English and Mr. Peterson.
The nearly $44 million that PennDOT collected last year from Allegheny County vehicle owners in registration fees for the state’s Motor License Fund also was about 50 percent more than the total collected in all of those counties.
On the other hand, I-80 alone eats up 22 percent of all federal interstate maintenance money allocated to the state. That statewide total last year was $211.9 million.
When revenues generated by Allegheny County are combined with the five-county Philadelphia area, where transit is provided by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, the urban areas are generating about 33 percent of all transportation money that is shared with the other 61 counties.
So, basically Peterson is doing the right thing, when he isn’t scapegoating the economic engines of Pennsylvania. Today, in an Inky article, titled Foes raise stakes on I-80 tolls, Peterson added:
“How do you do something this big without corridor studies or economic studies?” Peterson said last week, stopping at a restaurant off I-80 for a slice of blackberry pie. He drew a map of Pennsylvania on the back of a placemat and jabbed it with his pen. “Pretty soon, there will just be a big red circle around us, saying, ‘Don’t go there.’”
Another good passage from the article:
Local leaders fear the ripple effect of tolls: Fewer visitors to the Autumn Leaf Festival in Clarion. Higher costs for power plants. Oversized loads trying to drive through undersized local streets. More expensive commutes for workers and college students. Fewer orders for the vendors who supply cabinets, bathtubs and trimwork to the modular housing makers.
If Pennsylvania wants to spend more money on roads, it should actually spend some time coming up with a thoughtful, reasonable solution. It seems to me that raising the fuel tax is the most pragmatic, but some legwork needs to be done before that or any other solution is implemented.
Hopefully all of the backlash in Pennsylvania will scare Virginia from going down this same path.
