Fine, give the toll money to the highways, but then raise the fuel taxes to cover the actual cost to maintain the roads, so we don’t have to make up the $40+ billion shortfall per year with tax money.
PA Turnpike tolls are exhorbitant - used the Turnpike on a trip to Ohio last year. Breezewood to the Ohio line - 160 miles - $19.20 toll for a single two axle vehicle. Twelve cents per mile.
While I didn’t memorize all the tolls for the various classes of traffic - I did notice that some of the listed tolls for other destinations for higher classes of vehicles were beyond $200.
EZ Pass tolls are cheaper. PA is milking the traveling public both on Turnpike Tolls and gas prices which are routinely 20 cents higher that adjoining states (except New York).
The tolls on the Ohio/Penn/New York turnpikes thay told us 50 years ago were supposed to be a temp thing untill the bonds to build the Toll roads were paid off. They dont want to kill a cash cow.
Working for the PA Turnpike Authority is one of the “sweetest” government jobs in PA. For years it was a patronage system and while that has somewhat changed, it still pays far better than the “market” would. Anyway, PA is in deep financial trouble due to its underfunded public pension systems and heavy unionization of government employees which drives up costs due to salaries and work rules. [Plus major industry doesn’t come here to replace what was lost in the textile, steel & coal areas due to an antiquated business tax system and its history of confrontal unionization.] Hence, the heavy gas taxes as well as some other taxes.
One solution that has been floated would be to sell the PA Turnpike to a private operator for billions–then put the money in the pension funds to go a long way towards bailing them out. The Turnpike unions don’t want that and the rest of the state employee unions don’t want it either as that could start a trend. So it hasn’t gone anywhere.
New York State is not that far behind
The problem with the OP is that he fails to mention which truckers are sueing PennDOT and or what org are they from??
It’s OOIDA and the ATA both going after Pennsylvania. New York already has been sued and lost for using Thruway money to support the canal system in NY. The lawyers and accountants have yet to figure out how much of a refund the OTR industry is getting for 50 years of diversion.
BaltACD wrote the following post[in part]: “…EZ Pass tolls are cheaper. PA is milking the traveling public both on Turnpike Tolls and gas prices which are routinely 20 cents higher that adjoining states (except New York)…”
PA and NY are just a couple that ‘stick out’ in the grand political scheme of things. Here in Kansas, the Turnpike Authority, has been a recent, and ongoing target of the Brownback/Colyer administrations; as they drool over the accumulation of funds in the Turnpike Operating accounts. Deficits run in the School/Education budgets are a major problem; the State employees’ pensions, are also problematic. [banghead]
Pennsylvania might be in a better position if they can show that money spent on public transit reduces congestion on the PA Turnpike.
The thing is the way these turnpike commisions are set up was the money taken in is only to be used for the maintance of the highway nothing else no diverting of the money allowed. That is were NY got it’s tits in the wringer. PA from what has been found out is set up the same way.
Well shut down Metro/North and NJ Transit and SEPTA and watch as the Philly Ben Franklin Bridge Clog and 20,000 extra cars from people who ride the Light Rail in downtown Pittsburgh clogging up the tunnels and no place to park in the Downtown Triangle and the George Washington Bridge back up for 20 miles.
https://www.ooida.com/CourtActions/ for Owner Operated Association will be sending them a letter soon and will post reply
It can vary from state to state. The Illinois Toll Highway Authority is a completely separate public entity and does not receive any funding from the state budget. All operating expenses, including maintenance, snow removal, bond repayments, etc. come out of tolls.
Not anymore. Act 44 of 2007 and Act 89 of 2013 changed that.
Did NY ever have pass acts like that for their turnpike system?
Maybe we, the motoring public, should start suing the state and federal governments for all the money that they have diverted from toll revenue to build worthless trollies to nowhere just to satisfy some politician’s ego.
Not all jurisdictions have toll facilities. Observation - those toll facilities that exist have made it their mission to contiue to exist as toll facilities - irrespective of how well or poorly they maintain the facilities that occasion the use of tolls.
The only toll facilities that I can recall that ceased to exist were those in Jacksonville which ceased to exist in 1989. Tolls were collected for the Trout River, Hart, Matthews and Fuller Warren bridges as well as J Turner Butler Blvd. to Jacksonville Beach. Toll booths created monumental traffic congestion and the populace voted to replace the tolls with a 1/2 cent sales tax.
I was never prouder of the state of Connecticut than when they kept their word about the Connecticut Turnpike. They promised that when the bonds to build it had matured, they would eliminate tolls on it … and so they did.
Less happily, New York opted to keep its pathetic little toll on the connecting part of the road; fortunately, there were ‘free’ alternative routes that at the time didn’t involve too much diversion.
It does rather show that even Railroad fans are actually just slightly different versions of petrolheads when most of the posts here are arguing that making driving cheaper is the right thing to do. Maybe cheap driving was the cause of the collapse of the American passenger network.
Tolls were removed from the Dallas/Fort Worth toll road in 1977, as the roadway’s debt had been retired. Motorists had paid for the roadway. The roadway is now part of I-30.