Pennsylvania DOT, Turnpike Commission get on the road with I-80 tolling plan

Jeff Berman, Senior Editor -- Logistics Management, 10/17/2007

HARRISBURG, Pa.—The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission announced yesterday it has entered into a 50-year lease agreement for Interstate-80.

This agreement, according to these organizations, is part of the requirements of Act 44, which was passed by the Pennsylvania General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Edward G. Rendell in July. As part of Act 44, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission will transfer $83.3 billion to the PennsylvaniaDOT for statewide transportation projects.

The commission added this initiative will generate $33 billion for I-80 improvements—and other transportation projects—over the next 50 years, which, it said, will bring the total investment to $116 billion. 

During the first year of the lease, the Pennsylvania Turnpike would pay $750 million to the Pennsylvania DOT and annual payments will increase each year after. And under the terms of the lease, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission will maintain I-80 throughout Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania DOT and Turnpike Commission said that the lease restricts the use of tolls generated on I-80 to tolls and bridges, and funds earmarked through Act 44 for the state’s 73 public transit agencies will come from other available turnpike funds and resources, including toll increases and bond issues.

A report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette indicated that Pennsylvania state officials have requested expedited approval for this project from the Federal Highway Administration to make I-80 country’s third pilot interstate tolling project permitted under a federal transportation act, which, if approved, would add the 311 miles of I-80 to the 5,244 miles of tolled highways and bridges operating in the United States. The paper added that this plan calls for cars to pay 8 cents a mile and 18-wheel tractors to pay 30 cents a mile, which would put border to border tolls at $25 and $93, respectively, beginning in 2010.

The report also noted that in a letter Governor Rendell sent to DOT Secretary Mary E. Peters, Rendell explained that I-80 is 40 years old and Pennsylvania no longer has the required resources to “keep the corridor between the Northeast and Midwest safe and serviceable for passenger and commercial vehicles.”

While the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission maintain that this tolling initiative will be a major factor in making I-80 safer, as well as fix road and bridge problems, there is a belief that if this plan goes through, it will not translate into good news for shippers and carriers.

“Anytime you have things like tolling or public-private partnership on existing highways, we feel the public will lose out eventually, because transportation costs will go up,” said Wayne Johnson, chairman of the National Industrial Transportation League’s (NITL) Highway Transportation Committee.  “These costs will then be passed on to the buying public through increased prices and products, and those highways that are already in place and have been paid for with tax dollars..for the state to lease those out to a third party and in the past those third parties has almost been given a blank check to charge what they will to maintain a road and keep it viable for public transportation.”

Johnson also said that trucking carriers will likely look at these proposed tolls as a reason not to travel in I-80 and will seek other alternatives to get through Pennsylvania to get to their destinations, which could subsequently affect the safety of roads throughout the U.S.