Capital Comments

Talking dollars and sense on the I-80 tolling plan

By state Rep. Camille “Bud” George, D-74 of Clearfield County

Don’t like the plan to toll Interstate 80? Join the crowd.

 What are the alternatives? Two doozies:

n Increase the state’s taxes on gasoline – we already have the fourth-highest such taxes in the nation – by somewhere around 16-cents a gallon and increase car license and registration fees by 40 percent.

n Lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

The leasing proposal favored by Gov. Rendell has been a non-starter. He did receive 14 nibbles– nine of them from foreign-based entities and one from a group representing Turnpike workers.

Increasing the fuel taxes and driving/registration fees has been about as popular as a rat in the pantry. The last time the fuel tax was increased in Pennsylvania was in 1996, the same year Gov. Ridge called for placing tolls on I-80.

The federal government last approved a fuel-tax increase in 1993.

Gov. Rendell is opposed to increasing gas and diesel taxes, and so am I.

Would it be a better deal for Clearfield County than the tolls?

Say you drive 15,000 miles a year and average 20 miles per gallon. That’s $120 more just in additional fuel taxes and at least $148 when you add the fee increases that you and everyone in your family would pay annually.

That’s more than $6.8 million that the 56,984 licensed drivers in Clearfield County would pay in added fuel costs. Then add the roughly $800,000 they would pay in added license costs and the $1 million or so in added registration costs and Clearfield County’s bill is over the $8.5 million mark.

The costs under this plan don’t account for the steeply higher registration fees that truckers pay based on weight and axles. And when you consider that big rigs might average 6-8 miles per gallon, the increase in fuel taxes would be a killer.

With fuel at $3 a gallon or more, the suggestion that drivers will avoid Pennsylvania and I-80 is absurd. As one of the county’s largest employees indicated, no one is going to pay $50 more in fuel to save $25 in tolls.

Think the tolls on I-80 would cost you more? It’s harder to simplify because of the factors involved.

You can’t argue that if you drive the same the same 15,000 miles a year on I-80 – impossible because nobody lives on I-80 and nobody drives just on I-80 – that it would cost you $1,200 a year in tolls, based on the Turnpike’s 8-cents a mile toll rate in 2010 for passenger cars.

Why? Because not every exit will be tolled. The Turnpike anticipates up to 10 collection points along I-80 -- on average, every 30 miles.  With 59 existing interchanges along the 311-mile length of I-80, there would be a toll collection, on average, every 5 to 6 interchanges, allowing many local trips to be free.

That’s right, travel to and from exits between toll plazas will be free.

There’s more:

● More than 70 percent of the tolls would be collected from out-of-state drivers

●Toll locations will be based on a number of geographic, socio-economic, environmental and infrastructure factors.

● The potential diversion of I-80 truck traffic to local roads will be considered.

● No service plazas would be built to compete against local businesses.

● Under a planned E-ZPass volume-discount program, the Turnpike will offer price cuts — anywhere from 10-20 percent based on their monthly toll bill — to buses and trucks that take I-80.

● The commission is considering more ways to reduce costs for commuters and others.

Please remember that increasing the fuel taxes and fees would only solve 60 percent of the problem. The state Constitution forbids such fees from being used to pay for mass transit systems. So, even if the fuel tax and license and registration fees were increased, more taxes still would be needed.

Increasing fuel taxes and license and registration fees have another serious flaw. It takes time for ample funds to accrue under such a system to pay for needed road and bridge projects.

I-80 users will see more than twice as much money invested in I-80 improvements over the next 10 years than PennDOT would have been able to fund. None of the tolls will be used to fund mass transit. County and local road-and-bridge projects will see a 10 percent funding increase.

Time is not a luxury Pennsylvania can afford. Almost three years ago, I stated that the need for infrastructure improvements was urgent.

Today, PennDOT lists 163 bridges along state highways and 54 locally owned bridges just in Clearfield County as being structurally deficient, functionally obsolete, or both. That’s 217 bridges just in Clearfield County in need of improvement or replacement!

More than 6,000 bridges statewide are considered structurally deficient.

The I-35 bridge collapse this summer that killed 13 people underscores this dilemma. Scores of bridges across the state – and many in northcentral Pennsylvania -- have worse ratings than the bridge in Minnesota.

Simply saying no to the I-80 tolling plan without offering a viable alternative would be irresponsible and jeopardize the safety of Pennsylvanians, including those in Clearfield County.

I could not in good conscience allow this festering problem to continue unaddressed. Urgency seldom leads to the perfect solution. However, when the rubber hits the road, responsibility calls for action.

Responsible Democrats and Republicans refused to duck their responsibilities and considered the consequences of doing nothing.     

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