PHIA News Digest – Vol. 3, No. 27
Pa. lading turnpike with debt
The toll increase — which, like state pension contributions — are going nowhere but up in the coming years, largely because of shortsighted decisions years ago by lawmakers and the governor.
Editorial: Hit brakes on endless turnpike toll hikes
The turnpike commission should continue to lobby state lawmakers to find another way to fund Pennsylvania’s roadways and mass transit than to continually raise tolls on those travelling [sic] the turnpike.
High tolls price of bad governance
Pennsylvania lawmakers who recently fled the state Capitol for a three-month summer vacation used their E-ZPasses not only to pay their tolls on the way out of town, but to mask their own bad governance.
Auditor General DePasquale says Turnpike toll hikes making roadway unaffordable
Auditor General Eugene DePasquale issued this statement following a vote today by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission to raise tolls six percent in January 2019 — the eleventh consecutive annual increase.
Pennsylvania Turnpike fares to rise another 6 percent in 2019
Motorists will pay about 6 percent more to drive the Pennsylvania Turnpike next year, whether they pay cash or use the E-ZPass pay system.
Financing remains concern to widen Interstate 81 in Cumberland County
PennDOT is finalizing an update of its I-81 study, which is expected to show that the cost of widening the interstate to three lanes from the Maryland line through I-78 will run about $2.7 to $3 billion.
A Delaware-led study looks at mileage-based user fees vs. fuel tax
Delaware is testing a program that could one day mean drivers pay taxes based on the miles they drive instead of paying federal and state fuel taxes when they fill up their cars. The mileage-based user fee system is being tested by 150 people, mostly state employees, as part of an I-95 Corridor Coalition project.
Deadline nears for public comments on realignment of two-mile thruway section
The deadline is Friday for the public to make known its views on the new alignment for a two-mile section on the Central Susquehanna Valley Thruway in Snyder County.
