HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania state lawmakers who are unhappy Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration is considering tolling nine major bridges were warned about that prospect when they passed legislation in 2012 delegating approval to appointees of the governor and top lawmakers, they were told Tuesday, Feb. 23.
State Rep. Mike Carroll, D-Luzerne, reminded colleagues of that vote at the end of an Appropriations Committee hearing during which more than a half dozen committee members questioned Transportation Secretary Yassmin Gramian about potential bridge tolls.
“It turns out it’s difficult to fund transportation,” Carroll told colleagues during the hearing.
But, Carroll said, “those were decisions that we made, that this General Assembly made in an effort to find an easy path forward for an admittedly very complicated problem.”
Carroll, himself, voted against the 2012 bill, but other lawmakers now criticizing potential tolls backed the bill.
The Public-Private Transportation Partnership Board, created by a 2012 law, in November voted for the very first time to approve toll projects. The “major bridge” program allows the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) to toll bridges to fund improvements.
PennDOT last week named nine bridges that it said it is considering tolling to pay for the reconstruction.
Tolls would be between $1 and $2, probably both ways, would raise about $2.2 billion and would last from the start of construction in 2023 for three or four years until construction is finished, Gramian told the Appropriations Committee.
Tolling would be electronic and collected through E-ZPass or license-plate billing, PennDOT has said. The money collected on a bridge is supposed to go to the structure’s construction, maintenance and operation.
The bridges under consideration for tolling are I-78’s Lenhartsville Bridge in Berks County; I-79’s bridges over State Route 50 in Allegheny County; I-80’s bridges across Canoe Creek in Clarion County, Nescopeck Creek in Luzerne County, North Fork in Jefferson County and the Lehigh River, near Wilkes-Barre; I-81 over the Susquehanna River in northern Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna County; I-83’s South Bridge across the Susquehanna River, a mile from the state capitol and downtown Harrisburg; and I-95’s mile-long double-decked Girard Point Bridge across the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia.
PennDOT has said it selected major bridges badly in need of repair and balanced its selections by geography to limit the impact on any one area.
A number of lawmakers on Tuesday warned that the impact of the tolls cost will hurt commuters and commercial haulers.
Pennsylvania’s Transportation Committee Chairman Tim Hennessey, R-Chester, suggested borrowing the money.
But Gramian responded that payments on a bond would have to come from existing highway construction funds and take money from other, future construction projects.
States are seeing stagnant revenue from gasoline taxes, the major source of cash for highway construction, as vehicles are becoming more fuel-efficient and more people buy electric cars.
As an alternative, states are exploring user fees as a long-term replacement for declining gas tax revenue. The federal government has not increased the gas tax since 1993 and is encouraging states to explore user fees.
PennDOT has said its current highway and bridge budget for construction and maintenance is about $6.9 billion per year, less than half of the $15 billion that is needed to keep Pennsylvania’s highways and bridges in good condition and ease major traffic bottlenecks.
By Marc Levy, The Associated Press
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I live in Pennsylvania and I feel this state has created the problems it is facing. I believe some of the problem is poor financial planning. Because of Covid -19 our Governor shut down many small business nd told people to stay home. This went for months and many small business never came back. They lost a lot of tax on gas and diesel . Now they are going toll bridges. They say when the project is done the toll goes away. I have a hard time believing that once the money source is in place it will not go away
Time to move to Florida.
Reduce the salaries of all those lawmakers who do nothing for the citizens of Pa.who put them in office.That should pay for improvements in those bridges.