Pa. Turnpike receives extension on July transit payment

The Pennsylvania Turnpike

won’t have to make its quarterly $112.5 million transit payment in July to the state Department of

Transportation.

But PennDOT said local agencies shouldn’t suffer because they are eligible for federal funding through the stimulus bill passed by Congress last month.

In a teleconference Tuesday,

Acting PennDOT Secretary Yassmin Gramain said her agency granted an extension to the July payment at the turnpike’s request. Ms. Gramain also chairs the turnpike commission.

“Transit received a big number under the CARES Act,” Ms. Gramain said. “There’s not going to be any gap in their transit funding.”

The federal stimulus package included $25 billion to help transit agencies across the country, which have faced increased costs and reduced ridership as a result of the COVID-19 virus emergency. That includes

$1.13 billion for Pennsylvania, $162.1 million of that for the 10-county Western Pennsylvania region and

$141.75 million for Port Authority.

The turnpike had said last month that a similar sharp decline in traffic due to virus restrictions has reduced revenue and the agency would be reviewing future capital expenses as well as whether it could continue to afford the transit payments.

The payments are required by state law and

$400 million of the $450 million annual allotment is earmarked for transit agencies. The turnpike made its April payment because it had previously borrowed the money.

This would be the second interruption in transit payments in the past three years.

The turnpike didn’t make payments from July

2018 to July 2019 because it couldn’t borrow money due to a lawsuit filed by truckers who said the agency shouldn’t be allowed to use tolls for nonturnpike expenses. The turnpike eventually won that suit, but local transit agencies had to delay capital projects hundreds of millions of dollars in capital projects.