Turnpike gets extension on 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 the country’s transit agencies, 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 hundreds of millions of dollars in capital projects.
Turnpike spokesman Carl DeFebo said Tuesday the agency is projecting it will lose $118 million in toll revenue due to the virus by the end of its fiscal year May 31. He said he didn’t know whether the agency would have difficulty if it tried to borrow money for the transit payment.
Statistics released by the agency show from March 1 to May 2 traffic was down 47.1% and revenue down 36.5% compared to the same period in 2019. Traffic was the lowest at 64.1% below the previous year for the week of April 5 and 56.2% last week, and revenue was the lowest at 53% below for the week of April 12 and 47.9% last week.
Ms. Gramain said she also was “very concerned” about PennDOT funding for the new year that begins in July because Gov. Tom Wolf’s stay-at-home order has cut traffic and reduced the amount of gasoline tax the state is collecting. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Sunday the department lost about $50 million in taxes for two weeks of traffic restrictions in March.
“We’re preparing ourselves for the best and worst situations,” Ms. Gramain said, noting the best would be a proposed stimulus package for infrastructure that could bring the agency up to $800 million during the current federal fiscal year and $1.3 billion the next year.
Kurt Myers, deputy secretary for driver and vehicle services, said the agency is developing plans for reopening license centers across the state with safety provisions like social distancing and masks once restrictions are lifted. Initially, the centers will concentrate on services for drivers and won’t resume processing REAL ID applications until late summer.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security extended the deadline by a year to October 2021 for the voluntary driver’s licenses and ID cards, which will be required to pass through airport security and to enter most federal buildings.