Professor Paul Kengor’s column “Highway robbery on the Pa. Turnpike” (June 10, TribLIVE) criticizes the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission for raising toll fees despite the cost savings resulting from eliminating over 500 tollbooth workers and substituting E-ZPass and Toll by Plate. Kengor fails to mention that the turnpike has been required by our “never raise taxes” General Assembly to make hundreds of millions in annual payments to PennDOT for expenses totally unrelated to operation of the turnpike.
Under Act 44, enacted in 2007, the turnpike was supposed to gain additional toll revenues from converting Interstate 80 to a toll road, and so initially the turnpike was forced to pay the state $2.3 billion while awaiting approval from the federal government for the conversion. In April 2010, the Federal Highway Administration denied approval of the plan to toll I-80, but the General Assembly couldn’t kill the golden goose that was pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the state’s coffers, preferring to let the turnpike continue funding the PennDOT budget shortfall, paying $675 million in 2010, and $450 million each year thereafter.
The true “highway robbery” to which Kengor refers must be attributed to the Legislature that refuses to find tax revenues sufficient to fund PennDOT, freeing the turnpike to use its toll revenues solely for turnpike expenses.
R.M. Gesalman
Unity