NO TOLLS ON I-80 News From the Daily Item
Advocates of I-80 toll plan find plenty of opposition
By Wayne Laepple,
The Daily Item
Tuesday, November 15, 2007, Reprinted with Permission
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Brian Ranck, project manager for the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission speaks during a Central PA Chamber of Commerce luncheon about the possible tolling on Interstate 80 held at Normans Watson Inn in Watsontown. November 14, 2007. Photo by Michael Bavero/The Daily Item. |
WATSONTOWN -- Representatives of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission tried Wednesday to make the case for placing tolls on Interstate 80, but their arguments didn't have much traction with the region's business leaders.
"Our industrial parks are facing millions of dollars in cost increases if tolls are instituted," said Maria Culp, executive director of the Central Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce, which sponsored the luncheon meeting, attended by about 50. "This plan is totally against our best interests."
That response was similar to those received at every information session held so far, admitted William Capone, director of communications and public relations for the turnpike commission.
"It's an emotional issue," he said. "Businesses that will be affected have no options."
Mr. Capone and Brian Ranck, project manager for the I-80 project, said a long-term lease of Interstate 80 by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, as mandated in Act 44, would ensure adequate long-term maintenance of roads and bridges throughout the state.
None of the toll revenue from I-80 would be directed to mass transit, they added.
By 2010, if the toll plan is approved, tolls on Interstate 80 would match those on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It would cost about $25 to drive across the state by car, and trucks would pay $93. That rate would rise 3 percent each year thereafter, according to the plan.
The turnpike commission and the state Department of Transportation recently filed a joint application with the Federal Highway Administration for a pilot tolling program on I-80. Tolls received would yield $1.67 billion annually for highway maintenance around the state, according to early estimates, and the commission would spend $2 billion on capital improvements on I-80 in the first 10 years of the 50-year lease.
Mr. Capone said Missouri and Virginia had applied for federal funds from the same program two years ago and have not yet been approved.
Don Steele, president of the Northumberland National Bank, asked if any studies had been done to determine whether traffic would avoid the state completely. Mr. Rank said planned studies would consider the entire region.
A representative of Furman Foods in Point Township, Northumberland County, said tolls on I-80 would "put us out of competition," since competitors are shipping product by rail and by ship container to grocery distribution warehouses.
Other questions concerned how the economic impact studies would be done and whether the completed studies would be available to the public for comment.
Rick Coup asked if anyone had considered the effect on traffic going to Penn State football games.
"Six times a year, it becomes the third largest city in the state," he said. "If everyone has to go through a toll, how will that affect traffic?"
No answer was given to that question.
Steve Patton, owner of Watsontown Trucking Co., said he had surveyed 100 of his drivers, and only six said the turnpike was in better shape than I-80.
"Why would we pay the turnpike commission to maintain 80?" he asked.
Mr. Capone said he believed the turnpike was rated lower because of delays caused by construction and maintenance.
Mr. Patton replied by quoting from Overdrive, a trucking magazine, that the turnpike is consistently rated lower than I-80.
"I have to pay $700,000 a year for this" Mr. Patton asked, estimating that tolls on I-80 would cost him that much every year.
Another trucking executive asked "whether someone had a number that says we are worth trashing for tolls on I-80."
Michael Glazer, a staffer of U.S. Rep. John Peterson, R-5 of Pleasantville, said he believed rural Pennsylvania was "getting screwed."
He said a plan to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike by Gov. Ed Rendell was quickly withdrawn, apparently when opposition from the southeastern part of the state emerged.
"The turnpike commission would disappear" he said. "They would have to get jobs."
He said there is a slim chance that Act 44 will be repealed by the state Legislature, so pressure on the Federal Highway Administration is the next step.
Milton Realtor Jeff Coup said: "The fight is over on the state level. We have to get to the politicians in Washington. Our congressmen need to know. We have to let our senators and representatives know there will be serious financial consequences for them if they let this go through."
