By Sean McNally, Senior Reporter
This story appears in the April 19 print edition of Transport Topics.
A key Pennsylvania legislator has suggested the state toll a 50-mile stretch of Interstate 95 as part of a broader plan to fill a large transportation funding gap.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Transportation denied Pennsylvania’s application to toll Interstate 80, which had been a major part of the state’s multibillion-dollar transportation plan (4-12, p. 5; click here for previous story).
“We knew this day was coming, ever since the day that Act 44 was enacted in July of 2007,” Rep. Rick Geist, the top Republican on the Pennsylvania House Transportation Committee, said in a statement. “Now, it’s time to get on with the business of fully funding Pennsylvania’s transportation system.”
Gov. Edward Rendell (D) has said the state now will be short about $470 million a year unless officials modify the state’s transportation plan during an upcoming special session of the legislature.
Geist said he had put together his plan to “address this critical issue in a bipartisan fashion and with a sense of urgency. We can no longer afford to stand idly by as our transportation infrastructure deteriorates.”
The plan includes a number of financing changes and policy shifts, including tolling I-95 near Philadelphia.^
Geist said he was convinced a proposal to toll I-95 would satisfy the federal requirements I-80 couldn’t meet.
Adding tolls to the critical north-south route would provide the state with the funds needed to rehabilitate and repair I-95 — a project officials estimate will cost about $20 billion, or 10 times Pennsylvania’s annual construction budget.
“Given those figures, it is clear that I-95 is the perfect candidate” for a federal tolling pilot program, Geist’s office said in a statement.
Geist’s plan also includes passing public-private partnership legislation, a phaseout of the practice of paying the state police through the state’s transportation fund and changes to the state’s laws to allow design-build projects.
With a special session not yet scheduled and Rendell ending his term this year, transportation officials said they were doubtful the state could come together on a new plan anytime soon.^
“We have to start from the beginning and see where we go from here,” said Jim Runk, president of the Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association. “But to discuss all those things in a session, I would think they wouldn’t have time to work on much of anything . . . plus, they have a budget to work on.”
Runk also questioned whether a plan to toll I-95 would gain much traction in the state legislature.
“I just think it is another easy way out, and I can’t imagine the legislators from Philadelphia would be excited about that,” he said.
Mike Joyce, director of legislative affairs for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said the group “remains concerned with any effort to toll any existing highways, but we would be open to tolling additional capacity, and if the state wanted to toll additional capacity, we could certainly look at that.”
