Why I support a plan to restore Turnpike toll takers
I got my money’s worth on the Pennsylvania Turnpike over Thanksgiving.
The trip to Pittsburgh to celebrate with my family was the easiest I can recall. Traffic moved smoothly almost the entire 229 miles.
So my $26.90 was well spent (the extra $16 I blew on snacks at a rest stop, not so much).
Even better, because I paid with E-ZPass, I wasn’t slammed with an inflated toll to cover the ride of outlaws who don’t pay for their time on the pike.
The Turnpike has a big problem with uncollected tolls. From June 2020 through May, $104 million was lost.
To make up that loss, the Turnpike Commission jacks up the bills mailed to Turnpike customers who don’t use E-ZPass.
If I hadn’t used E-ZPass, I would have paid $54.30 for my Thanksgiving trip — more than twice as much.
My smooth ride would not have been worth that.
There has to be a way to make scofflaws pay. And, thankfully, state lawmakers have a few promising plans in the works.
In October, the House Transportation Committee unanimously endorsed legislation that would reduce the threshold for suspending vehicle registrations of toll scofflaws. The bill also would give authorities more time to collect.
House Bill 1922 by Rep. Mike Carroll, D-Luzerne, would allow PennDOT to suspend registrations on vehicles that have accumulated four toll violations or $250 in unpaid tolls. The current limits are six violations or $500.
Suspensions could occur up to five years after a violation, an increase from the current three years.
Sen. Marty Flynn, D-Lackawanna, plans to introduce similar legislation in the Senate. His plan would also require the Turnpike to resume using toll collectors to take cash payments. That would reduce the number of drivers being billed through the mail, and the number who don’t pay.
About 86% of Turnpike trips are paid automatically with E-ZPass. It’s the other 14% of trips that cause trouble.
Nearly half those billed by mail don’t pay, Associated Press reported.
Flynn said in a legislative memo a few weeks ago that the Turnpike had good intentions when it did away with toll collectors and started collecting tolls by mailing bills to drivers without E-ZPass.
He said the Turnpike failed, though, to adapt its enforcement to address the unpaid toll problem that resulted.
“We need to stop the bleeding and find solutions,” Flynn said.
Resuming cash collections should help. It’s worth a shot, as long as it’s done at a limited number of toll booths and doesn’t disrupt traffic.
Lawmakers should make these bills a priority. Collecting unpaid tolls is not a partisan issue. It should be supported unanimously, as it was in the House committee.
Of course, since our overpaid lawmakers will be in session for only three more days this year, don’t expect any progress soon.
The Turnpike and state lawmakers should have known this was going to be a problem several years ago when the toll road planned to go cashless. I suggested then that action be taken to prepare for an increase in scofflaws, including some of the steps proposed in these bills.
Flynn’s legislation also would require the Turnpike to submit an annual report to the General Assembly about toll collections.
That report would be more impactful if it would include a list of the top scofflaws. Some of the amounts have been staggering.
In recent years, scofflaws have agreed to cough up $11,500, $10,000 and $7,400.
They did so only after the Turnpike turned their cases over to prosecutors and criminal charges were filed. The Turnpike started doing that several years ago. It appears to be the only toll commission in the nation that goes that far to collect what it is owed.
That plan has been a success and should be expanded.
The Turnpike says it collects tolls at a rate of 93%, which meets or exceeds industry standards. That sounds good. But the figure that counts is the $104 million that’s uncollected.
It’s unrealistic to think that every toll will be paid. But $104 million is too much to ignore.
With tolls scheduled to rise annually for the next 29 years, the Turnpike must do all it can to make sure everyone pays their fair share. And the Legislature must do its part to give the Turnpike more tools and more authority.
Then the rest of us can know we are getting our money’s worth on the Turnpike all the time.