Saturday, July 28, 2007


Jul. 28, 2007 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) --
Still fuming over the tolls planned for Interstate 80, U.S. Rep. John Peterson has set out to build a state and federal legislative caucus to help stop the plan, he said Friday.

'We are going to do everything we know to do to get this decision revisited and reversed,' Peterson, R-Pleasantville, said in an interview. 'It's not a program that will be retained. It is the most convoluted, complicated, bad deal I have ever looked at for the taxpayers of Pennsylvania.'

Meanwhile, his Republican colleague Phil English, a U.S. representative from Erie, is expected to announce Monday a federal bill that targets the tolls.

The measure 'would make it very difficult for (tolling) to occur,' Peterson spokesman Travis Windle said.

Public details about the bill were sparse Friday, but Windle said it will be a tax-related measure and will have Peterson's support.

Earlier this month, the state General Assembly approved a transportation bill that could plant as many as 10 toll plazas on I-80. A 311-mile stretch of the highway cuts across Pennsylvania.

That legislation would allow the Turnpike Commission to set toll rates and toll-plaza locations. I-80 toll rates would be expected to follow the turnpike toll rates, which are slated to grow 25 percent in 2009.

In time, with the increases, it could cost about $80 for a truck to cross Pennsylvania, Peterson said. He said drivers of passenger cars could pay $25 to $30 for a drive from Ohio to New Jersey.

The state plan, opposed by Centre County lawmakers, would put toll money toward I-80 maintenance while redirecting other transportation funds toward mass-transit bus systems (TSXV:BUS) and other road upkeep.

It would depend in part on more than $13 billion in new borrowing, to be paid back once toll revenues climb.

Peterson, himself a former state lawmaker, said the approach is a 'very complicated scheme of funding' that could hold substantial benefits for bond lawyers.

In a sharp, multipronged critique, he argued that the state legislation would, in effect, make rural areas more responsible for funding the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh mass-transit systems. Peterson also decried the Turnpike Commission as a body 'often controlled by big-city politicians.'

He said Gov. Ed Rendell has used too much federal transportation money to pay for urban mass-transit systems in recent years. Money for highway maintenance and money for mass transit, he said, ought to be 'de-linked.'

'Philadelphia has never (contributed) its fair share,' of mass-transit money, Peterson said. ' ... Those who use these (bus and subway) systems, and the regions that use these systems, ought to be putting up their share of money.'

But perhaps most ominously, he said the added tolls could hurt the state's economy. He knows of no other state that charges tolls on two primary east-west corridors, he said.

'I want someone to prove to me that this is not a deterrent to economic growth,' Peterson said.

Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo, reached Friday evening, said the state plan 'is a bipartisan compromise that addresses the transportation funding crisis.'

More than 20 percent of the state's bridges are structurally deficient, and more than 8,500 miles of state-maintained pavement are in poor condition, according to the state Department of Transportation. Urban transit systems, including the Centre Area Transportation Authority, have undergone rounds of service cuts.

Rendell, trying to bulk up transportation funding, had first proposed leasing the turnpike and taxing oil-company profits. Both ideas lost momentum in the General Assembly.

Ardo said the governor thinks the toll booths 'can be placed in a way that minimizes any economic impact.'

All details, including resident input and toll-both placement, should be considered in the coming months, he said.

The tolling plan also depends on approval from the Federal Highway Administration. Peterson and English moved this week to block use of federal dollars on the tolling project.

And Peterson said Friday that he will try to make the federal approval process more complex for the state.

In trying to build an I-80 legislative caucus, he said, he has talked with state Sen. Jake Corman, R-Benner Township. Corman has opposed the tolling plan but could not be reached for immediate comment Friday.

Corman, along with state Reps. Kerry Benninghoff, R-Bellefonte, and Scott Conklin, D-Rush Township, voted against the state transportation plan. They have cited various reasons, including a lack of local input on toll rates and booth placement.

Adam Smeltz can be reached at 231-4631.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0179-18489702


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