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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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CONTACT: |
State Rep. Thomas Petrone |
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id="_x0000_i1026" |
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Petrone plans to support transportation funding
through sporting event fee
PITTSBURGH, June 1 – State Rep. Thomas Petrone, D-Allegheny, announced a proposal to help fill Pennsylvania’s transportation funding gap by imposing a small fee on tickets purchased for athletic events.
The fee would amount to 10 percent of the price of any athletic event ticket in Pennsylvania, from high school sporting events to professional athletics. Petrone said the fee would be justified to help pay for the roads, bridges and transit systems patrons use to get to sporting events.
“Our transportation funding problems are not easy to solve, but failing to act would risk serious harm to our economy in western Pennsylvania and across the state. We have a funding gap of hundreds of millions of dollars that are needed to make vital repairs to bridges and highways and avoid repeats of the overpass collapse that happened on Interstate 70 in Washington County in December 2005,” Petrone said.
“We also need to head off massive service cuts and fare hikes that would mean more cars on the roads, leading to more congestion and increased pollution. That in turn would harm people’s health, increase health-care costs and risk environmental penalties that could hurt businesses in the region.
“I understand that some constituents may feel slightly uneasy about the prospect of a sporting event fee, but it is a reasonable alternative to raising the gas tax or a state turnpike privatization plan that would probably result in massive toll hikes,” Petrone said. “And when put in the context of an inexpensive ticket, a 10 percent fee is reasonable, and will more often than not go unnoticed.”
Petrone stressed that as the transportation funding dilemma is very complex, this measure would not serve as the complete solution to the problem.
“The sporting event fee would only contribute a small piece to the puzzle we must solve. It’s a step in the right direction to ease the financial burden of transportation issues, but the legislature must add other appropriate measures in order to fix the funding gap we are now facing,” he added.
The bill is currently in its drafting stages, and Petrone plans to introduce it in the next few weeks.
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