PA Turnpike revenue should be used to upgrade the turnpike itself
As Pennsylvania’s legislature returns to work, transportation is shaping up as an issue likely to dominate the fall agenda. When lawmakers left Harrisburg in July most had scratched mass transit, road, and bridge funding off their to-do list. Passage of Act 44, which included a plan to place tolls on Interstate 80, was thought to have resolved the issue.
The plan is coming unraveled. The tolling of I-80 caught many off guard. As a result, a grassroots rebellion has been brewing from border to border as the financial impact of tolling the interstate has begun to sink in among commuters, businesses, and the general public.
Since I-80 was built with federal dollars, tolling the highway is subject to federal approval. Doubt that such approval would be forthcoming sprang up almost immediately as Congressmen John Peterson and Phil English launched a fight to prevent the tolling. Congressmen who voiced support for tolls, such as Representative Paul Kanjorski, have gotten an earful of criticism from irate constituents. Joining in the opposition are U.S. Senators and Representatives from other states seeking to head off such controversies on their own turf.
The move to toll I-80 came about as Governor Ed Rendell and the General Assembly were seeking to resolve last summer’s budget stalemate. Mass transit systems, particularly in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, were in dire need of cash. A recent study showed billions of additional dollars are needed to repair roads and bridges across the state.
Governor Rendell has proposed to pay for all this by selling or leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike to the private sector. Lawmakers opposed to that idea turned to I-80 tolling as an alternative. As the uproar over tolling I-80 gathered steam, Governor Rendell revived his effort to sell or lease the turnpike and is now seeking specific proposals from potential bidders.
Privatization of the turnpike will be a hotly debated issue over the coming weeks. But one critical aspect of the debate has so far been left off the table: whether or not it is privatized, should turnpike funds be diverted away from the turnpike?
Keep in mind the Pennsylvania Turnpike is the granddaddy of all super highways. When it opened in 1940, the turnpike was the first limited-access roadway in America. Despite significant investment, the Pennsylvania Turnpike is showing its age. The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission’s own 10-year capital improvements plan calls for $2.6 billion in upgrades to the roadway alone. Billions more must be spent on fixing or replacing aging tunnels, bridges, service plazas and such related items as highway equipment, communications gear, and toll plazas.
There is also the rapidly escalating traffic flow on the turnpike to consider. When it comes to highways, Pennsylvania lives up to its slogan of being the Keystone state, the turnpike serving as a major supply route to the nation’s eastern seaboard megalopolis running from Boston to Virginia. In recent years parts of the turnpike have also turned into a commuter route, especially in southeastern Pennsylvania.
For much of its length the Pennsylvania Turnpike remains a four lane highway. Four lanes are simply inadequate and the congestion will only get worse. The turnpike needs to be widened to a minimum of six lanes – more in urban areas – and that will cost uncalculated billions of dollars.
Ownership and governance issues aside, the first question is about the wisdom of utilizing either the turnpike’s bonding capacity or revenue from a potential sell or lease for anything other than the future upgrade of the Pennsylvania Turnpike itself. Diverting turnpike resources to other transportation needs may be a short term solution for the funding problems that immediately confront Pennsylvania. It is not, however, in the best interests of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and those travelers who depend upon it to be an efficient and modern transportation route.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike was built along a partially-constructed railroad line known as Vanderbilt’s Folly because the billionaire entrepreneur William Vanderbilt conceived of the rail line, which went bust. If Governor Ed Rendell is successful in pillaging the turnpike treasury for other uses, it could in the future become known as Rendell’s Folly.