1/3/17
by News Department on 01/03/17Toll increases...
Beginning Sunday, The Pennsylvania Turnpike will be raising rates on the most common toll, a trip between two interchanges.
Tolls will rise from $1.80 to $1.95, about 8.3 percent, making it the ninth consecutive year the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission voted to raise rates.
A state transportation law adopted when Gov. Ed Rendell tried to get tolls on Interstate 80 and privatize the turnpike contributes heavily to the annual hikes.
The federal government rejected the state’s attempt to toll I-80, the main east-west highway across Pennsylvania, but the transportation law still requires the commission to give the state Department of Transportation $450 million a year until 2022 when the amount drops to $50 million. chief executive officer Mark Compton said the turnpike, which raised rates only five times in its first 68 years, will keep raising them annually for the foreseeable future unless the state acts.
He blamed the annual toll hikes on ongoing needs to pay off existing turnpike bonds, upgrade its 550 miles of highway, pay increasing pension costs and continue funding mass transit statewide.
The money, once used partly for roads and bridges, now exclusively funds mass transit.
