Penn Pike toll rates up 3% Jan 3

Pennsylvania Turnpike toll rates are set to rise 3% after midnight on Sunday Jan 3. The increase announced a year ago is in line with the Turnpike Commission's obligations to support non-toll transportation around the state under July 2007's state Act 44.

The most common cash tolls for cars go from 95c to $1 and for class 5 trucks go from $7.85 to $8.10.

A regular passenger car driving the length of the mainline ticket system from mile post 30 at Warrendale in the west to the Delaware River Bridge in the east (MP359) will now pay $25.45 v $24.70 and the toll for a class five truck will go from $73.75 to $76. Cash and transponder (E-ZPass) toll rates are the same.  Those are all 3% increases.

If traffic is unaffected by the toll hikes, toll revenues should grow about $19m - from the current $638m to $657m next year.

see tables nearby

Under Act 44, passed by the General Assembly and signed by Gov Ed Rendell July 2007, the Turnpike has turned over more than $2 billion to PennDOT. Those funds are have been used, the Turnpike says, by PennDOT to improve 1580km or 980 miles of roadway and to replace 92 bridges.

The Act also provides for the Turnpike to impose tolls on I-80 across the north of the state - a proposal that has so far run afoul of local opposition and federal law.

Turnpike Chief Engineer Frank Kempf is quoted: "While the burden of helping to fund transportation statewide is heavy lifting, we remain focused on our mission of operating a safe, efficient toll-road system. In fact, we're continuing a robust plan for maintaining and improving our existing system, spending nearly $400 million on roadway and bridge capital projects this fiscal year alone."

The Turnpike has 877km (545 miles) of toll road and has 62 toll collection points which do an average of 510k toll transactions daily. It has 2169 on payroll.

new and old toll rates can be checked out here:

http://www.paturnpike.com/toll/tollmileage.aspx

BEWARE: Penn Pike officials have a bad habit of using the term 'fares' when they means tolls. Fares are what you pay to ride a bus.

TOLLROADSnews 2009-12-29