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Course of action for Pennsylvania’s looming transportation problem won’t be made until the fall
By MIKE SCHREIBER
Era Associate Editor
A course of action for Pennsylvania’s looming transportation problem won’t be made until the fall.
That’s likely when a convergence of three major proposals ” placing tolls along Interstate 80, leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike and another plan offered by Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Brockway, which repeals the authority to toll the interstate ” will be debated and acted upon.
“Everything is in limbo at this point,” Scarnati said Tuesday. “There are three very different proposals out there.”
Some transportation relief came Monday in the form of an additional $350 million in state funding to aid in the repair of 411 structurally deficient bridges ” including 19 in the four-county region. The Legislature has also signed off on millions in bond issues to deal with the problem.
However, McKean County and the surrounding region still have scores of ailing roads and bridges to deal with, some of which that have been waiting on funding for several years. The funding also doesn’t filter down to locally owned structures, which are also in dire need of repair.
“We can’t let this issue become a crisis,” Scarnati said.
Hence, the three proposals currently on the table.
According to Scarnati, the federal government has yet to get and review an updated proposal by the Commonwealth to place tolls along Interstate 80.
“I know that PennDOT and the Turnpike Commission have been working on sending in a revised proposal to meet the criteria the federal highway transportation people have asked for,” Scarnati said. “That whole issue is still up in the air and it’s up to the federal government to approve it or not.”
In a memorandum released in December, the Federal Highway Administration asked the state’s transportation agencies for additional detailed information, including where the funds from the tolls would go and why they are needed to rebuild an interstate and relieve traffic pressure.
“It’s difficult to have some insight to what is taking place there (in Highway Administration),” Scarnati said. “This whole transportation situation will be exacerbated in the fall, when the federal transportation trust fund will go bankrupt in October. That helps pay for federal highways.
“This Congress looks like it’s going out without doing anything on these issues.”
The issue of placing tolls along the interstate has been a bone of contention from Washington to Harrisburg.
One federal lawmaker, U.S. Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., has taken up the cause to block the tolling plan, having introduced legislation in Congress to do so. Peterson has also called the Turnpike Commission scandal-ridden.
Meanwhile, Scarnati has said on numerous occasions that he adamantly opposes any type of gas tax on the state’s residents, adding previously that placing tolls along the interstate was the least of the evils having been discussed. Scarnati said previously that blocking tolls on the interstate was playing into Gov. Ed Rendell’s hands to do what he’s wanted to all along, sell the turnpike.
That very idea occurred earlier this year, when the Rendell administration announced the Spanish company, Abertis Infraestructuras, had submitted a bid of $12.8 billion to lease the turnpike for 75 years.
Rendell has reportedly said that leasing the turnpike could generate upwards of $1.1 billion annually for transportation needs statewide. If that did come to pass, that would far outweigh the return on the Act 44 proposal passed last year that calls for $950 million to be generated, including the placement of tolls on I-80.
The company has been pushing for a decision on the proposed lease agreement and will launch a multi-million dollar public relations blitz in the coming months, including through radio advertisements and mailings.
It appears the proposal will face a fight in the Legislature and will be one of the major issues for debate when the legislative body returns to the capitol in September.
“The bidder has put some time parameters on the bid, that being sometime as soon as we get back (in session),” Scarnati said. “The bidder won’t keep the offer on the table a whole lot longer.”
That leaves Scarnati’s plan, which calls for not tolling Interstate 80 or selling the turnpike.
“It takes a business-like approach to taking care of the turnpike,” Scarnati said, adding his proposal sits in the Senate’s transportation committee.
Scarnati’s proposal would also enact legislation authorizing the state to enter into public-private partnerships for the purpose of constructing and managing new capacity highway and transportation improvement projects and lower the expected growth in tolls anticipated by Act 44 on the mainline of the turnpike by 20 percent.
The proposal also calls for transferring the responsibility of funding the Pennsylvania State Police out of the Motor License fund over a two-year period and evaluating the operating expenses of the turnpike through an independent auditor and using the proceeds from any cost-savings to supplement statewide transportation funding, among others.
“I’m willing to protect my (senatorial district) area and make sure there is as much free travel for people as possible,” Scarnati said. “This has been important for me from the beginning. We have to get this solved. Congress isn’t riding in on a white horse and there is no magic fix to this.
“There are great concerns as to where we are heading and how to manage our infrastructure needs.”
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