Penndot continues to run into legislative road blocks in its plan to raise new revenue through tolling several bridges statewide.
Penndot officials Thursday again outlining their plans at a State House Transportation Committee. The agency faces a nearly 8 billion dollar annual revenue shortfall for State road projects.
In recent years they’ve looked to more private public partnerships, especially for bridge projects.
Now they have nine large bridge replacement projects ,including four on Interstate 80, in the works with a total price tag of 2.2 Billion dollars. To help pay that bill, Penndot wants to, through
whats known as its P3 proposal, to toll those bridges
“A toll of one to two dollars per vehicle with an ez pass”
There is talk of new Federal infrastructure money coming to Pennsylvania that could be used for road construction, but not surprisingly, there’s little outright support in the legislature for added
motorist costs through tolling
“We already have the highest gas taxes,now you want to toll bridges. wheres the efficiency? we can talk about federal dollars and how they should spend more for infrastructure,but thats not whats
being consider here. this is terrible plan”
The House hearing comes after the State Senate has already passed a bill that would effectively kill the P3 tolling plan, directing Penndot to explore other revenue raising proposals.
