I-80 tolling

William Capone, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has sent us a two page letter in response to our report (link) of comments by Marc Lemon chief counsel of the Federal Highway Administration in 2008 on the I-80 tolling application. The letter contests Lemon's theme that the Turnpike Commission ignored advice FHWA gave on what was legally required in the application to allow FHWA to give a favorable ruling.

Allen Biehler, chairman of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and secretary of transportation says the state will reapply to the feds to get permission to toll I-80. Biehler said this at a meeting of the state House Democratic Policy Committee May 26 according to an account circulated by legislative staffers.

Pennsylvania's biggest problem in getting permission to toll I-80 may turn out not to be intricacies of federal highway law and regulations, but simply whether the Federal Government should turn over control of a major interstate to a bunch of crooks to make money out of. A local thinktank in the state capital Harrisburg, the Commonwealth Foundation puts this bluntly in a two-page letter from its president Matt Brouillette addressed to James Ray, Federal Highway Administrator.

Governor Ed Rendell said Monday that the Turnpike Commission "can't win this by stalling." In a memo to Turnpike CEO Joseph Brimmeier, as reported by Brad Bumstead in the Pittsburgh Tribune this morning, the Governor wrote: "I believe it is time for the Commonwealth (of Pennsylvania) to get an answer one way or the other from the US Department of Transportation regarding whether tolls on Interstate 80 will be allowed."

The US House-Senate transport appropriations conference removed an I-80 anti tolling amendment from a budget bill late last night, according to its main sponsor and champion northern PA congressman John Peterson (Repub).

Peterson issued this statement which we quote at length because it echoes many of the themes being heard along I-80: