Pennsylvania

Here's a gutsy 'toll' hike! The US Airways roundtrip basic air fare Pittsburgh-Philadelphia (pre-tax) is rising mid-January from $118 to $698 - a story the Pittsburgh Post Gazette's Len Barcousky has this morning. That's a 5.9-fold increase or 423%.

Barry Seymour head of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission studying tolls on US422 says they'll be best to abandon the tolls plan if the state increases taxes for transportation in line with recommendations of Governor Tom Corbett's transport funding commission. With tax money from Harrisburg a needed modernization and widening of US422 plus rail transit will be fundable with state grants, Seymour says.

Estimates presented by local planners suggest about $1.1 billion of highway and transit improvements can be financed with tolls on US422, a radial route going northwest out of the Philadelphia area. The capital is to be split about two-thirds highway upgrades, one third for a commuter rail service.

by Cindy Inkrote      On March 25, 1805, Northumberland County progressed when the Pennsylvania Legislature voted to incorporate the Centre Turnpike Company.  Residents identified a need for a better road between Sunbury and Reading. The population was increasing and Sunbury, a hub for business and government, needed a more reliable way to transport mail, freight and passengers.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett is moving very slowly to assert control at the Pennsylvania Turnpike, but acted decisively this week at the Delaware River toll bridge authority where he fired all six Democrat appointed commissioners and installed six of his own. Following a precedent set by his predecessor Ed Rendell, Corbett also put himself onto the board.

A test of the new Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, his secretary of transportation Barry Schoch and new executives at the Pennsylvania Turnpike will be the little hamlet of Breezewood PA in Bedford County PA.  Are they serious about the convenience of motorists and reform of the Turnpike, or will they perpetuate one of its most blatantly corrupt political rackets?

The new governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, is nominating Barry Schoch, 50, one of ten vice presidents at engineering firm McCormick Taylor as secretary of transportation - the person who usually has a balance of power on the board of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission.

They call it the Express E-ZPass lane - what we call generically open road tolling (ORT). It's a single highway speed electronic toll lane on I-80 at the toll point for the Delaware Water Gap Bridge over the upper Delaware River between New Jersey and Pennsylvania near Stroudsburg PA. They opened it in a provisional configuration November 22 alongside five stop-to-pay cash lanes that also accept an E-ZPass transponder. (Tolling here is westbound only.)

Despite severe winter weather - where's that "global warming" they promised us? - the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission opened a new piece of the Mon Fayette Expressway (MFE, PA43) near Uniontown PA south of Pittsburgh Monday morning.

Like many Democrats this election US Representative Christopher P Carney of the 10th District of Pennsylvania never talks about his party affiliation. And he says his top transportation priority is the Central Susquehanna Valley Thruway project, an upgrade to expressway standard of some 13 miles (21km) of US15 the main north-south highway of his district.