As the turnpike turns
The drama of the state highway is never-ending
State transportation officials are caught between a pothole and the guardrail. As they figure out how to handle the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission’s debt, one thing is for certain: Motorists will be paying more to use the toll road.
Both the commission and state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale have raised concerns about the agency’s debt, which represents about $600 million of the agency’s $980 million operating budget. And, as PostGazette staff writer Ed Blazina reported Thursday, the debt service is getting bigger and more worrisome. Mr. DePasquale isn’t the first to sound the alarm; his predecessor, Jack Wagner, did so at least as far back as 2012.
The commission on Tuesday raised tolls for the ninth year in a row, a 6 percent jump that will make the cost of a cross-state trip $37 for passenger vehicles with E-ZPass and $51.85 for those without it. Commission chairman Sean Logan said the increase was necessary to cover construction-related debt and pay an annual bill to the commonwealth to support public transit. Sections of the 75-year-old highway are “in dire need of replacement,” Mr. Logan said, but the commission will look at all scheduled projects to make sure they’re affordable in light of debt concerns.
As Mr. DePasquale has pointed out, the commission can raise tolls only so many times before motorists start using detours. The turnpike would like to be freed of the annual $450 million it must pay to the state Department of Transportation, under a 2007 state law, to help finance other transportation needs. In 2023, the annual payment drops to $50 million a year.
Sure, the turnpike could do a lot with an extra $400 million a year. But what would PennDOT do without it? Some of the money has been directed to struggling transit operators, including the Port Authority of Allegheny County, which only in recent years has stabilized its finances after a period of service cuts and layoffs. No one wants to revert to that scenario, and it’s no fun to see the state play whack-a-mole with the taxpayers, solving a problem at one agency only to create a crisis at another.
This is a problem that requires strategic planning, exploration of new revenue sources and interagency cooperation. The predicament has been years in the making, and it’s disappointing that state leaders are still grasping for solutions after all this time.