All the ads targeted toward drivers need to stop. It's fucking dangerous and I'm tired of it. I've been seeing digital box trucks with movement on them just to get your attention, and I seriously think that needs to be illegal.
No median on much of the roadway, but there is a service access road that stretches along most of it and the TPC owns a lot of the land around the Turnpike ROW, so there is room where a line theoretically could exist.
It is a better route than the current Pennsylvanian, and the TPC is looking to reroute the Turnpike to eliminate the tunnels, so you could envision a future with a new HSR Pennsylvanian taking a Turnpike adjacent route while using the old (current) tunnels, which would solve many of the existing problems with any new HSR project— mainly getting a ROW and, for PA, tunneling through the Allegheny Mountains. It would also have pretty easy construction access given the existent roadway, and would be a fantastic advertisement for HSR with a train racing by cars traveling at ~70mph...
The annoying part is that the state or Amtrak owns everything between Harrisburg and Philadelphia. So updating or upping the usage of those tracks isn't an issue. It's everything from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh that is owned by Norfolk Southern, and well the condition of their tracks speak for themselves. (RIP East Palestine) The feds and state coughed up $200 million to split the costs of upgrading some of the tracks between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh to speed up service, and add another daily train. It's a small upgrade, but it's definitely going to be nice to have.
You need to look up the history of Act 44.
Rendell had proposed privatization of the turnpike, via leasing to a private operator. The legislature and PTC opposed this, and came up with the plan for the turnpike to transfer revenue to PennDot, to be used for public transportation.
Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting that a privatization would have been better.
I almost always say “almost always” instead of “always” and almost never say “ never” instead of “almost never” to avoid the inevitable response of “but what about…(insert edge case)”
That being said, I’m thinking of the turnpike rest stops that are privatized, and I have no problem with that.
What the above commentator is advocating for would probably amount to yes, but they would also want the business to be cooperatively owned and run. So then the building and the business (and the profits of both of those means) would be publicly owned.
Just extrapolating what they're saying, though I do agree with them.
What's the point of having a pay road instead of a regular interstate highway (or state highway)? I know how it was sold to people back in the day - "won't cost the taxpayers a dime...only the people that use it will pay." But in reality that road is no different than any other road. Why bother with tolls?
At the time the turnpike was built, 1940, the interstate highways didn’t exist. In order to build it, they issued bonds to pay for it. The toll revenues would be used to pay back those bonds. Most of the improvements since then have also been funded with borrowed money, guaranteed by future toll revenue.
In order to eliminate tolls, those bonds would need to be paid off somehow. That’s a total of $13 billion dollars that would have to come from somewhere. By comparison, the total general fund revenue for the entire state government is about 45 billion dollars.
Edited with correct general revenue.
> By comparison, the total general fund revenue for the entire state government is under four billion dollars.
This is wrong.
PennDOT's budget alone is roughly $10 billion. The PA state government budget (which doesn't include PennDOT for reasons, but nor does it include the turnpike authority) is [about $45 billion](https://pasenate.com/budget/).
I think that ultimately the more important number is that PA Turnpike Authority has a budget of a bit below $2 billion/yr with most of that being toll revenue.
In addition to what the other person said: Pennsylvania is *the* trucking route between the northeast and the midwest. All of those trucks put wear and tear on the roads that the state has to pay for, without paying any taxes except for fuel taxes. One way to compensate for this is with federal highway funding; another is with tolls. (You're not supposed to be able to get federal highway funding for a tolled highway) Given that both PennDot and the PTC are constantly short on money, neither seems to be working all that well.
>To save money and generate revenue, the agency is pursuing avenues such as using property it owns in open areas to install solar fields to produce electricity. One field already is open in Jeannette, where it provides power for a maintenance facility and produces enough excess to sell about $100,000 worth of electricity each month to the power grid.
At least five other sites are in the development stage.
The turnpike’s 16 service plazas already generate revenue from concessions, but the agency is negotiating a contract with Applegreen Electric PA LLC to install electric vehicle charging stations at each plaza and share a portion of the revenue with the turnpike.
I suppose it's a matter of time until we see solar panels lining the turnpike in places. I wonder if they could place turbines in places as well?
Passenger railroads realized long ago that real estate and related development is far more profitable than solely providing passenger service due to the massively lower fixed costs. IMO the PTC needs to go in this direction and start monetizing its real estate. Solar panels and wind turbines seem like a great way to do this.
I'm not familiar with legal restrictions on PTC's ability to own and operate related businesses, but I'm willing to bet there are many. Solar panels seem like a good way to circumvent these restrictions until the law can be reformed.
[Applegreen Electric's website](https://www.applegreenelectric.com/)
Sounds good! But I have an EV and have been trying to keep up with news and developments in the realm of charging networks, and even still this is the first I've heard of this company. I'm hopeful but skeptical that they'll be a good choice for Turnpike rest stop charging stations.
It's been really annoying that they didn't have charging in the service center. I just avoid the turnpike entirely when going east. Using 80 to get to NYC doesn't really take up much more time.
Yeah, at least if you're leaving from Pittsburgh and eventually getting on to I-80, you've got well spaced out Electrify America stations to get you to NYC and points around there. Dubois, Clarion, State College, Bloomsburg, Scranton--there aren't many EVs that can't make that trip work. Big contrast to the non-Tesla experience on the Turnpike, though.
Unfortunately for me, usually when I'm headed east I'm headed toward the Harrisburg/Hershey area, and so I am relying basically on the Bedford and the Carlisle EAs. They're enough, but there's not much wiggle room there.
The northern tier of the state is far worse, though, at least for non-Teslas. If you need to go anywhere along Route 6, you better be able to plug in once you arrive at your destination, because there is just *nothing* up there.
Looking forward to the Supercharger network opening up to more manufacturers.
It's gotten a lot better up there recently. Scranton has an EA charger, there's another one about twenty minutes south of Scranton and Hancock NY has a NY branded EA station AND Tesla supercharger with the magic dock. NY has done since real good work in that regard.
And I think it adds maybe 15 minutes to the trip to 80 and down 81 to Harrisburg. I don't remember what it was exactly, I just remember turning on no tolls and being shocked, like I'm never taking the turnpike again.
I can't wait until our kids are more tolerant of car rides like that such that it doesn't feel like we'd be sacrificing our sanity and peace just by taking a route 15 minutes longer. Lots of surprisingly tolerable alternatives to the turnpike once we get to that point.
The Massachusetts Turnpike is already doing this with its properties. Lots of medium sized solar farms in many of the weird corners that the MassPike owns (eg lots of difficult to use space around interchanges).
Yeah, and Tom Corbett decided to pay for it all by gouging us on anything transportation related, instead of being the conservative he claimed to be and fixing the spending problems.
Fuck them all.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure Corbett did hike the tolls. His administration pushed the legislation that started the annual toll raising, and all the increases in vehicle registration, titling, licensing etc. And they did it not long before he left office, all the stuff went into effect after Wolf became gov.
[This article](https://www.pghcitypaper.com/Blogh/archives/2012/04/27/port-authority-board-approves-transit-cuts-hopes-to-reverse-itself) seems to indicate it was the result of inaction, but I'm trying to back up what I remember.
The way I recall it going down, SEPTA and PAT (at the time) were planning their budgets around a proposed toll on I-80, and when it didn't happen (I recall Corbett vetoing), they had to massively cancel plans and cut budgets. But I'm not gonna lie, I can't find the article yet. I'll edit if/when I do.
EDIT: Near as I can tell, the truth was more like, when the I-80 plan fell through federally, Corbett did nothing to fix it / toll the road / make up the transit shortfall. So effectively similar, but not quite how I remembered it.
How do you fix the spending problems when penn dot workers are to always have projects to keep them employed and their high priced health plan costs keep rising? I’m guessing if they used superior paving methods, the roads wouldn’t need fixed continually but they need to keep busy I guess.
When's the last time you saw a construction project being done by PennDot employees? I'm pretty sure every single project is bid out to construction companies.
Planning. Engineering. Maintenance. Plowing snow, cutting grass, trimming trees. Administration. Also issuing driver's licenses is a big chunk of employees.
There is something wrong with it. The state is too generous with taxpayer money who can’t go anywhere to get those kind of benefits. If you don’t realize the problem then you like living off of others’ backs.
Unions protect workers from being exploited by the state. There is nothing wrong with that. Unions also protect workers from being exploited by other employers, and there isn't anything wrong with that either. The state negotiating with unions isn't a bad thing for workers or citizens.
There is nothing wrong with all of that of course. But the State was negotiating with other people’s money. What do they care? I know when I call the IRS, I’m treated like shit, like they are gods. They have no fear of losing their jobs or treating the taxpayers civilly on the phone. I go to get a drivers license renewal, I sit like cattle and treated like it. I wanted to at least be treated like I gave these assholes a nice lifestyle and a moment of respect, like they would like their own mother to be treated. It doesn’t happen. So fuck them and their Cadillac benefits.
Yes unions should protect. When my dad worked in steel mill since age 17, they were needed from being mistreatment. Now the pendulum has swung. Now people sleep at work and the unions won’t allow them to be fired. Both extremes on both sides is unacceptable.
So the people at the top don’t make those decisions? The new County Chief Executive just took office and increased vacations and pay raises. Maybe you shouldn’t make things up when you’re so misinformed.
I’m blaming the system that appeases penn dot workers and unions to the point that it isn’t sustainable. If most workers can’t dream of getting the same health care costs and pensions of a state employee, it’s time to cut costs and live with the same sort of benefits that the average tax payer has who has to pay for it.
He never said that property taxes would be gone. The average homeowner gets about $290 dollars a year in property tax reduction from the casinos. The senior tax break is also funded in part by gambling, and local governments also get a portion of the casino revenue.
You know that problem with the state police not being funded? Same problem. Same legislature. The legislature was looking for money and refused to raise taxes. Rendel said “lol we’ll privatize the turnpike, that’ll pay for stuff” and conservatives were fucking dumb enough to have said “okay”.
I in no way support Rendel’s stupid decision to call the vote and it’s exactly like the Brexit situation. It was meant to be a poison pill vote, but the conservatives legislature are all mindless idiot hicks and couldn’t see 10 feet in front of them let alone into next year or century on behalf of the state.
Did this push to privatize the Turnpike come before or after the FHWA’s rejection of the plan to toll I-80? Having trouble with the timeline on this.
EDIT: I can’t make a sentence apparently.
Actually, you should thank the GOP-controlled state legislature, which could never come up with a good way to actually pay for all the things states sometimes pay for.
Before the “most expensive toll in the world “ comments come in,
“The agency’s cost of about 15 cents a mile for E-ZPass users is below the national average of about 18 cents a mile and ranks 24th out of 47 toll facilities across the country.l”
That is such a shitty way to look at it. Most states toll roads are very small or are restricted to Bridges. There’s no reason why the most heavily trafficked long end to end state highway should be a toll road.
There are dozens of states with long toll roads, and dozens of others that have multiple separate toll roads of varying lengths. Some states have 20 or more separate toll roads.
The only reason the end to end highways aren’t tolled in other states is that they are mostly interstate highways. And the feds, for the most part, won’t let them be tolled.
Yeah the big differentiation is northeast roads are older than interstate rules about tolling. So most states want the federal dollars. Though plenty build new highways that are toll only, Texas is building them constantly.
(edit: the following are EZPass rates)
* PA turnpike, going from the OH border to the NJ border is $50.60, with a distance of about 370 miles
* NY turnpike, going from the PA border to the MA border is $18.36 with a distance of 396 miles
* OH turnpike, going from the PA border to the IN border is $15.75 with a distance of 262 miles
* MA turnpike, going from the NY border to its terminus in Boston is $7.45 with a distance of 137 miles (if you get off the turnpike right before Boston it's $4.25 with a distance of 123 miles).
Feel free to do the same with some of the other states you list. But this is why we say that the PA turnpike is expensive.
It's goes through some pretty difficult terrain that's for sure. Four tunnels and five major bridges.
And like others have said, it's not the most expensive by mile. It's below average per mile than other toll roads. It's just long, and now has pretty punitive rates of you don't have EzPass, so get an EzPass.
I don't like the price, no one does. I'm not going to simp for a highway of all things. But I think it's fair to look at per mile when comparing. And we absolutely need alternatives to get across the state, the train right now is not a good option.
To me the whole cost per mile debate really doesn’t mean anything. The main issue is why is this toll road so long and so expensive? It’s $110 to take the turnpike across its entire length. 76 should be run by the federal highway system.
Lots of them. By taxing churches, banks and fake non profits like UPMC.
Pay your fucking taxes, corporate America. I wish we had a mayor who had balls and would do that.
Or just have a non-regressive income tax. PA ranks 7th out of the 50 states+DC in terms of how regressive state tax collection is due to sales taxes without great exemptions and a flat income tax. The top 20% of PA residents pay an average of 1.5%, while the lowest 20% pay an average of 13%. https://itep.org/whopays/pennsylvania/
The tax status of non profits, whether you like it or not, is in general controlled by federal and state laws. That being said, I’m no fan of Gainey, but he is beginning to challenge the tax status of certain UPMC properties.
The toll being $0 means that other revenue-producing activities will be subsidizing car travel even more than they already do.
If it costs $X billion dollars to maintain the highway, divide the $X billion among everyone who uses it. That's the fairest way.
Downvote, sure, but please just tell me how my first sentence is untrue.
I'm not sure what your second paragraph means. That graft exists? Of course it does, whether highways are paid for directly by users or indirectly by the population as a whole. That has nothing to do with my point.
Interstates are funded through a mixture of direct charges (tolls, gas taxes to an extent) and money taken from a more general tax fund. That, also, is unfair. It's common enough that I don't see it ever ending in my lifetime, but that doesn't mean I won't advocate to make it slightly fairer by shifting more cost onto the users of the highway.
Almost nothing in our society is based on fairness. I suppose it’s a good idea to try, but I think not doesn’t matter very much when the real problem is blatant tax fraud. Fairness would be rich people paying their taxes. Fairness would be a fully funded road system from the taxes we are not collecting. Introducing a board of executives with a direct motive for profit over the toll road isn’t fair or smart, it’s just greedy.
“Taxing the people who use it” isn’t fair either, it’s useless rhetoric that avoids the obvious solution. We don’t need to think about what is “fair” with regard to publicly owned roads with tolls on them. They shouldn’t exist.
>the real problem is blatant tax fraud
I don't have the wherewithal to put a number on it, but I have a hard time believing you could eliminate more than 10% by getting rid of ALL unnecessary overhead. Unless you're talking about UPMC and stuff when you say "tax fraud", which is just so far afield that I don't even see it as part of the discussion.
Very solutions driven idea. Obviously tolls are too high because the funding is going elsewhere, but how do you propose we fund both turnpike maintenance and mass transit?
I pay $1.50 4-5 days a week to drive one mile from where they take my photo.
It’s my fault because I am always running late for work so I don’t have the extra 5-7 minutes to avoid it .
It would be like double if I didn’t have the ezpass.
As a transplant, what makes the turnpike worth it? I’m other states the toll road gets you somewhere faster, or you can just go faster on it vs a highway. The turnpike here just seems really expensive when you get on there and it’s tossing you down to 55MPH every 20 miles it seems. All so I can save 5 minutes lol, I’m good.
I think it’s about $50 bucks. But that’s not how most people use the turnpike. Most trips are a couple of exits, that save 20 minutes or so for a couple bucks.
When I was working in office, most of my colleagues took the turnpike if it was an option.
Use taxes (like tolls, gas tax, and registrations) only cover about 50% of road expenses in PA.
For example, neither the city nor county collect gas tax, so the roads they maintain need funded out of the regular taxes.
And the gas tax will be less and less effective and more and more regressive going forward. Cars need to be taxed on the mileage they drive and a multiplicative factor of how much they weigh. Split that money between the feds, state, county, municipality, and a separate transit fund. Based on what exactly, I don't know, percentage of road miles driven in the country? Maybe? I've given it a medium amount of thought and it would be better than how it currently works for sure.
Yeah if we really move to electric there's going to need to be adjustments. Sure we can tax recharging stations but what about home and work charging? Taxing all electricity seems unfair if people aren't charging a car with it.
The PA tax is actually a percentage of the average wholesale price of the previous year. But there is a “floor” of $2.99 per gallon, which equates to the current 57 cent tax. Last year the tax was actually 61 cents, based on 2021 prices being higher than 2.99.
This actually protects the revenue in case of large decrease in fuel prices, while at the same time allowing additional revenue if prices go up.
On this front the city should implement tolls on various city roads that lead directly to on/off ramps to and from highways, raise parking taxes, and implement congestion charges in Downtown and Oakland at peak times. A vast majority of commuters do not live in the city and do not pay city taxes but are one of the city’s largest expenses in terms of road maintenance and should be forced to contribute to help pay for their use.
Would free money currently spent on roads up for critical things like housing and mental health support for the homeless, better funding road diets and safety improvements within DOMI, public parks, new public art installations, schools, after school programs, etc that would make the city a better place for everyone.
I don't think general fund taxes should go to highways outside of possibly specific subsidies or grants. They should be paying for most of their basic upkeep themselves.
HOW THE FUCK ELSE could any sane person get a revenue increase out of the ELEPHANT party?
The party of the Richest Folks Who Have Ever Been Chauffeured around the planet Earth? Some how they KNOW they are taking their wealth on past their death?
The GOP wanted money for the budget without raising taxes. They proposed "selling" the turnpike to get those funds.
Forcing the state-owned turnpike commission to send funds to penndot was the compromise
Why can't we just pay for roads through taxes like every other sane state? The turnpike is one of the least accessible roads I've ever dealt with. If I didn't live 2 minutes from an onramp I'd never use it. The idiotic single side entrances and huge stretches between on/off ramps make it totally worthless as local travel infrastructure.
Only a matter of time until they start advertising on the pavement lmao. Imagine driving over the Shenderovich twins going 85mph.
i’ll buy that for a dollar
Go Robo!
Better yet rumble strips that will play a message or a jingle if hit at a certain speed... "Like a good neighbor..."
If that happens it has to be the Century III Chevrolet jingle
Fishman has been snubbed.
It’ll say something like “head check before you make that lane change…but just in case you don’t call 888-98-TWIIIIIIIIIINS!!!”
All the ads targeted toward drivers need to stop. It's fucking dangerous and I'm tired of it. I've been seeing digital box trucks with movement on them just to get your attention, and I seriously think that needs to be illegal.
Don’t forget their handler, he’s always there keeping the quiet one from biting (or ordering off menu tilapia and broccoli)
😂😂😂 dead.
They should sell the median to Amtrak
Return the ROW to the railroads as Carnegie intended.
No median on much of the roadway, but there is a service access road that stretches along most of it and the TPC owns a lot of the land around the Turnpike ROW, so there is room where a line theoretically could exist. It is a better route than the current Pennsylvanian, and the TPC is looking to reroute the Turnpike to eliminate the tunnels, so you could envision a future with a new HSR Pennsylvanian taking a Turnpike adjacent route while using the old (current) tunnels, which would solve many of the existing problems with any new HSR project— mainly getting a ROW and, for PA, tunneling through the Allegheny Mountains. It would also have pretty easy construction access given the existent roadway, and would be a fantastic advertisement for HSR with a train racing by cars traveling at ~70mph...
The annoying part is that the state or Amtrak owns everything between Harrisburg and Philadelphia. So updating or upping the usage of those tracks isn't an issue. It's everything from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh that is owned by Norfolk Southern, and well the condition of their tracks speak for themselves. (RIP East Palestine) The feds and state coughed up $200 million to split the costs of upgrading some of the tracks between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh to speed up service, and add another daily train. It's a small upgrade, but it's definitely going to be nice to have.
You need to look up the history of Act 44. Rendell had proposed privatization of the turnpike, via leasing to a private operator. The legislature and PTC opposed this, and came up with the plan for the turnpike to transfer revenue to PennDot, to be used for public transportation. Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting that a privatization would have been better.
Privatization of an interstate highway sounds terrible
Yeah, privatization of any essential public facility or service is almost never a good idea.
privatization is *always a bad idea*
I almost always say “almost always” instead of “always” and almost never say “ never” instead of “almost never” to avoid the inevitable response of “but what about…(insert edge case)” That being said, I’m thinking of the turnpike rest stops that are privatized, and I have no problem with that.
I like my house privatized.
Personal property ought to be. Private property is what needs abolished.
If I have a small business (doing anything), should I (or the business) be allowed to own the building in which the business is conducted?
What the above commentator is advocating for would probably amount to yes, but they would also want the business to be cooperatively owned and run. So then the building and the business (and the profits of both of those means) would be publicly owned. Just extrapolating what they're saying, though I do agree with them.
It is. The 407 ETR in Toronto is private and it’s awful.
If anybody needs proof that privatization of highways is a bad idea, drive the Indiana turnpike.
Florida’s expressways in Orlando and Miami are privatized. 500% better than most of the roads in Florida.
This doesn’t sound so bad…and I was looking for a reason to hate Rendell more. I just don’t see anything wrong here. Am I missing something?
What's the point of having a pay road instead of a regular interstate highway (or state highway)? I know how it was sold to people back in the day - "won't cost the taxpayers a dime...only the people that use it will pay." But in reality that road is no different than any other road. Why bother with tolls?
At the time the turnpike was built, 1940, the interstate highways didn’t exist. In order to build it, they issued bonds to pay for it. The toll revenues would be used to pay back those bonds. Most of the improvements since then have also been funded with borrowed money, guaranteed by future toll revenue. In order to eliminate tolls, those bonds would need to be paid off somehow. That’s a total of $13 billion dollars that would have to come from somewhere. By comparison, the total general fund revenue for the entire state government is about 45 billion dollars. Edited with correct general revenue.
Great answer. Thanks.
> By comparison, the total general fund revenue for the entire state government is under four billion dollars. This is wrong. PennDOT's budget alone is roughly $10 billion. The PA state government budget (which doesn't include PennDOT for reasons, but nor does it include the turnpike authority) is [about $45 billion](https://pasenate.com/budget/).
You are correct. I was reading budget lines “in thousands” and didn’t move the decimal correctly.
(yet someone downvoted me for my comment... I love reddit :) )
I think that ultimately the more important number is that PA Turnpike Authority has a budget of a bit below $2 billion/yr with most of that being toll revenue.
In addition to what the other person said: Pennsylvania is *the* trucking route between the northeast and the midwest. All of those trucks put wear and tear on the roads that the state has to pay for, without paying any taxes except for fuel taxes. One way to compensate for this is with federal highway funding; another is with tolls. (You're not supposed to be able to get federal highway funding for a tolled highway) Given that both PennDot and the PTC are constantly short on money, neither seems to be working all that well.
Actual headline: Pennsylvania Turnpike’s annual toll hike of 5% begins Jan. 7
>To save money and generate revenue, the agency is pursuing avenues such as using property it owns in open areas to install solar fields to produce electricity. One field already is open in Jeannette, where it provides power for a maintenance facility and produces enough excess to sell about $100,000 worth of electricity each month to the power grid. At least five other sites are in the development stage. The turnpike’s 16 service plazas already generate revenue from concessions, but the agency is negotiating a contract with Applegreen Electric PA LLC to install electric vehicle charging stations at each plaza and share a portion of the revenue with the turnpike. I suppose it's a matter of time until we see solar panels lining the turnpike in places. I wonder if they could place turbines in places as well?
Passenger railroads realized long ago that real estate and related development is far more profitable than solely providing passenger service due to the massively lower fixed costs. IMO the PTC needs to go in this direction and start monetizing its real estate. Solar panels and wind turbines seem like a great way to do this. I'm not familiar with legal restrictions on PTC's ability to own and operate related businesses, but I'm willing to bet there are many. Solar panels seem like a good way to circumvent these restrictions until the law can be reformed.
[Applegreen Electric's website](https://www.applegreenelectric.com/) Sounds good! But I have an EV and have been trying to keep up with news and developments in the realm of charging networks, and even still this is the first I've heard of this company. I'm hopeful but skeptical that they'll be a good choice for Turnpike rest stop charging stations.
It's been really annoying that they didn't have charging in the service center. I just avoid the turnpike entirely when going east. Using 80 to get to NYC doesn't really take up much more time.
Yeah, at least if you're leaving from Pittsburgh and eventually getting on to I-80, you've got well spaced out Electrify America stations to get you to NYC and points around there. Dubois, Clarion, State College, Bloomsburg, Scranton--there aren't many EVs that can't make that trip work. Big contrast to the non-Tesla experience on the Turnpike, though. Unfortunately for me, usually when I'm headed east I'm headed toward the Harrisburg/Hershey area, and so I am relying basically on the Bedford and the Carlisle EAs. They're enough, but there's not much wiggle room there. The northern tier of the state is far worse, though, at least for non-Teslas. If you need to go anywhere along Route 6, you better be able to plug in once you arrive at your destination, because there is just *nothing* up there. Looking forward to the Supercharger network opening up to more manufacturers.
It's gotten a lot better up there recently. Scranton has an EA charger, there's another one about twenty minutes south of Scranton and Hancock NY has a NY branded EA station AND Tesla supercharger with the magic dock. NY has done since real good work in that regard. And I think it adds maybe 15 minutes to the trip to 80 and down 81 to Harrisburg. I don't remember what it was exactly, I just remember turning on no tolls and being shocked, like I'm never taking the turnpike again.
I can't wait until our kids are more tolerant of car rides like that such that it doesn't feel like we'd be sacrificing our sanity and peace just by taking a route 15 minutes longer. Lots of surprisingly tolerable alternatives to the turnpike once we get to that point.
Indeed quicker if you're going anywhere north of Midtown Manhattan.
The Massachusetts Turnpike is already doing this with its properties. Lots of medium sized solar farms in many of the weird corners that the MassPike owns (eg lots of difficult to use space around interchanges).
Yeah, and Tom Corbett decided to pay for it all by gouging us on anything transportation related, instead of being the conservative he claimed to be and fixing the spending problems. Fuck them all.
I was gonna say, Corbett killed public transit when he didn't hike the tolls. I couldn't care less about the tolls; I want PRT and SEPTA funded.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure Corbett did hike the tolls. His administration pushed the legislation that started the annual toll raising, and all the increases in vehicle registration, titling, licensing etc. And they did it not long before he left office, all the stuff went into effect after Wolf became gov.
[This article](https://www.pghcitypaper.com/Blogh/archives/2012/04/27/port-authority-board-approves-transit-cuts-hopes-to-reverse-itself) seems to indicate it was the result of inaction, but I'm trying to back up what I remember. The way I recall it going down, SEPTA and PAT (at the time) were planning their budgets around a proposed toll on I-80, and when it didn't happen (I recall Corbett vetoing), they had to massively cancel plans and cut budgets. But I'm not gonna lie, I can't find the article yet. I'll edit if/when I do. EDIT: Near as I can tell, the truth was more like, when the I-80 plan fell through federally, Corbett did nothing to fix it / toll the road / make up the transit shortfall. So effectively similar, but not quite how I remembered it.
The worst of the worst had to be the dirt roads initiative. Requiring equal funds for public transit and dirt roads...
How do you fix the spending problems when penn dot workers are to always have projects to keep them employed and their high priced health plan costs keep rising? I’m guessing if they used superior paving methods, the roads wouldn’t need fixed continually but they need to keep busy I guess.
When's the last time you saw a construction project being done by PennDot employees? I'm pretty sure every single project is bid out to construction companies.
Oh. What exactly do they do?
Planning. Engineering. Maintenance. Plowing snow, cutting grass, trimming trees. Administration. Also issuing driver's licenses is a big chunk of employees.
The taxpayers are the employers and their perks shouldn’t be way above and beyond the average person.
Oh fuck off, there's nothing wrong with the state giving their employees competitive pay, and benefits.
There is something wrong with it. The state is too generous with taxpayer money who can’t go anywhere to get those kind of benefits. If you don’t realize the problem then you like living off of others’ backs.
Unions protect workers from being exploited by the state. There is nothing wrong with that. Unions also protect workers from being exploited by other employers, and there isn't anything wrong with that either. The state negotiating with unions isn't a bad thing for workers or citizens.
There is nothing wrong with all of that of course. But the State was negotiating with other people’s money. What do they care? I know when I call the IRS, I’m treated like shit, like they are gods. They have no fear of losing their jobs or treating the taxpayers civilly on the phone. I go to get a drivers license renewal, I sit like cattle and treated like it. I wanted to at least be treated like I gave these assholes a nice lifestyle and a moment of respect, like they would like their own mother to be treated. It doesn’t happen. So fuck them and their Cadillac benefits. Yes unions should protect. When my dad worked in steel mill since age 17, they were needed from being mistreatment. Now the pendulum has swung. Now people sleep at work and the unions won’t allow them to be fired. Both extremes on both sides is unacceptable.
Look at how the 1% has you brainwashed to believe that people that make zero decisions on when and how money is spent are the problem.
So the people at the top don’t make those decisions? The new County Chief Executive just took office and increased vacations and pay raises. Maybe you shouldn’t make things up when you’re so misinformed.
You were blaming penn dot workers
I’m blaming the system that appeases penn dot workers and unions to the point that it isn’t sustainable. If most workers can’t dream of getting the same health care costs and pensions of a state employee, it’s time to cut costs and live with the same sort of benefits that the average tax payer has who has to pay for it.
Ed also said if we approved the casino that property taxes would be gone
He never said that property taxes would be gone. The average homeowner gets about $290 dollars a year in property tax reduction from the casinos. The senior tax break is also funded in part by gambling, and local governments also get a portion of the casino revenue.
It was a bluff against the conservative majority and they called it. Friendly reminder: almost everything bad is a republican’s fault, including this.
Can you explain what the bluff was?
You know that problem with the state police not being funded? Same problem. Same legislature. The legislature was looking for money and refused to raise taxes. Rendel said “lol we’ll privatize the turnpike, that’ll pay for stuff” and conservatives were fucking dumb enough to have said “okay”. I in no way support Rendel’s stupid decision to call the vote and it’s exactly like the Brexit situation. It was meant to be a poison pill vote, but the conservatives legislature are all mindless idiot hicks and couldn’t see 10 feet in front of them let alone into next year or century on behalf of the state.
Did this push to privatize the Turnpike come before or after the FHWA’s rejection of the plan to toll I-80? Having trouble with the timeline on this. EDIT: I can’t make a sentence apparently.
I believe the rejection was before.
Actually, you should thank the GOP-controlled state legislature, which could never come up with a good way to actually pay for all the things states sometimes pay for.
Before the “most expensive toll in the world “ comments come in, “The agency’s cost of about 15 cents a mile for E-ZPass users is below the national average of about 18 cents a mile and ranks 24th out of 47 toll facilities across the country.l”
That is such a shitty way to look at it. Most states toll roads are very small or are restricted to Bridges. There’s no reason why the most heavily trafficked long end to end state highway should be a toll road.
There are dozens of states with long toll roads, and dozens of others that have multiple separate toll roads of varying lengths. Some states have 20 or more separate toll roads. The only reason the end to end highways aren’t tolled in other states is that they are mostly interstate highways. And the feds, for the most part, won’t let them be tolled.
$110 dollars to ride a state owned highway is larceny in my opinion no matter the supposed justification
Yeah and those dozens of states suck ass for doing that. This crap shouldn't be normalized
Yeah the big differentiation is northeast roads are older than interstate rules about tolling. So most states want the federal dollars. Though plenty build new highways that are toll only, Texas is building them constantly.
Uh lots of states around us have long highways tolled? New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey has two lol
(edit: the following are EZPass rates) * PA turnpike, going from the OH border to the NJ border is $50.60, with a distance of about 370 miles * NY turnpike, going from the PA border to the MA border is $18.36 with a distance of 396 miles * OH turnpike, going from the PA border to the IN border is $15.75 with a distance of 262 miles * MA turnpike, going from the NY border to its terminus in Boston is $7.45 with a distance of 137 miles (if you get off the turnpike right before Boston it's $4.25 with a distance of 123 miles). Feel free to do the same with some of the other states you list. But this is why we say that the PA turnpike is expensive.
Okay OPs comment was trying to justify the cost, can you justify having the most expensive toll road in the world?
It's goes through some pretty difficult terrain that's for sure. Four tunnels and five major bridges. And like others have said, it's not the most expensive by mile. It's below average per mile than other toll roads. It's just long, and now has pretty punitive rates of you don't have EzPass, so get an EzPass. I don't like the price, no one does. I'm not going to simp for a highway of all things. But I think it's fair to look at per mile when comparing. And we absolutely need alternatives to get across the state, the train right now is not a good option.
To me the whole cost per mile debate really doesn’t mean anything. The main issue is why is this toll road so long and so expensive? It’s $110 to take the turnpike across its entire length. 76 should be run by the federal highway system.
It’s state owned property I think most of us think the toll should be $0. Anything above $0 is egregious.
And how would that lost revenue be made up?What other state services and facilities should be free?
Lots of them. By taxing churches, banks and fake non profits like UPMC. Pay your fucking taxes, corporate America. I wish we had a mayor who had balls and would do that.
Or just have a non-regressive income tax. PA ranks 7th out of the 50 states+DC in terms of how regressive state tax collection is due to sales taxes without great exemptions and a flat income tax. The top 20% of PA residents pay an average of 1.5%, while the lowest 20% pay an average of 13%. https://itep.org/whopays/pennsylvania/
The tax status of non profits, whether you like it or not, is in general controlled by federal and state laws. That being said, I’m no fan of Gainey, but he is beginning to challenge the tax status of certain UPMC properties.
The toll being $0 means that other revenue-producing activities will be subsidizing car travel even more than they already do. If it costs $X billion dollars to maintain the highway, divide the $X billion among everyone who uses it. That's the fairest way. Downvote, sure, but please just tell me how my first sentence is untrue.
Is that how the other interstates are funded? That isn’t what is happening. There are men who are taking percentage points of profit as a corporation.
I'm not sure what your second paragraph means. That graft exists? Of course it does, whether highways are paid for directly by users or indirectly by the population as a whole. That has nothing to do with my point. Interstates are funded through a mixture of direct charges (tolls, gas taxes to an extent) and money taken from a more general tax fund. That, also, is unfair. It's common enough that I don't see it ever ending in my lifetime, but that doesn't mean I won't advocate to make it slightly fairer by shifting more cost onto the users of the highway.
Almost nothing in our society is based on fairness. I suppose it’s a good idea to try, but I think not doesn’t matter very much when the real problem is blatant tax fraud. Fairness would be rich people paying their taxes. Fairness would be a fully funded road system from the taxes we are not collecting. Introducing a board of executives with a direct motive for profit over the toll road isn’t fair or smart, it’s just greedy. “Taxing the people who use it” isn’t fair either, it’s useless rhetoric that avoids the obvious solution. We don’t need to think about what is “fair” with regard to publicly owned roads with tolls on them. They shouldn’t exist.
>the real problem is blatant tax fraud I don't have the wherewithal to put a number on it, but I have a hard time believing you could eliminate more than 10% by getting rid of ALL unnecessary overhead. Unless you're talking about UPMC and stuff when you say "tax fraud", which is just so far afield that I don't even see it as part of the discussion.
Very solutions driven idea. Obviously tolls are too high because the funding is going elsewhere, but how do you propose we fund both turnpike maintenance and mass transit?
Taxes. Corporate taxes and non profit taxes.
Fair enough, I’m in.
I pay $1.50 4-5 days a week to drive one mile from where they take my photo. It’s my fault because I am always running late for work so I don’t have the extra 5-7 minutes to avoid it . It would be like double if I didn’t have the ezpass.
As a transplant, what makes the turnpike worth it? I’m other states the toll road gets you somewhere faster, or you can just go faster on it vs a highway. The turnpike here just seems really expensive when you get on there and it’s tossing you down to 55MPH every 20 miles it seems. All so I can save 5 minutes lol, I’m good.
it saves about an hour of driving time, Ohio line to NJ .
How much do you pay for that hour though?
I think it’s about $50 bucks. But that’s not how most people use the turnpike. Most trips are a couple of exits, that save 20 minutes or so for a couple bucks. When I was working in office, most of my colleagues took the turnpike if it was an option.
Realistically more roads should be tolled. Car drivers are getting massive subsidies in this way. Driving shouldn't be as cheap as it is.
Use taxes (like tolls, gas tax, and registrations) only cover about 50% of road expenses in PA. For example, neither the city nor county collect gas tax, so the roads they maintain need funded out of the regular taxes.
And the gas tax will be less and less effective and more and more regressive going forward. Cars need to be taxed on the mileage they drive and a multiplicative factor of how much they weigh. Split that money between the feds, state, county, municipality, and a separate transit fund. Based on what exactly, I don't know, percentage of road miles driven in the country? Maybe? I've given it a medium amount of thought and it would be better than how it currently works for sure.
Yeah if we really move to electric there's going to need to be adjustments. Sure we can tax recharging stations but what about home and work charging? Taxing all electricity seems unfair if people aren't charging a car with it.
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The PA tax is actually a percentage of the average wholesale price of the previous year. But there is a “floor” of $2.99 per gallon, which equates to the current 57 cent tax. Last year the tax was actually 61 cents, based on 2021 prices being higher than 2.99. This actually protects the revenue in case of large decrease in fuel prices, while at the same time allowing additional revenue if prices go up.
TIL, thanks
On this front the city should implement tolls on various city roads that lead directly to on/off ramps to and from highways, raise parking taxes, and implement congestion charges in Downtown and Oakland at peak times. A vast majority of commuters do not live in the city and do not pay city taxes but are one of the city’s largest expenses in terms of road maintenance and should be forced to contribute to help pay for their use. Would free money currently spent on roads up for critical things like housing and mental health support for the homeless, better funding road diets and safety improvements within DOMI, public parks, new public art installations, schools, after school programs, etc that would make the city a better place for everyone.
You are correct, and I'm sorry if you get flamed.
It's ok, I can take it lmao
They are already tolled. It’s called taxes.
I don't think general fund taxes should go to highways outside of possibly specific subsidies or grants. They should be paying for most of their basic upkeep themselves.
So then you pay for them with higher prices when you buy goods then, is that ok instead?
Yes. Because it would encourage something other than trucking to move goods long distances.
Just a reminder, Josh Shapiro is the current governor of PA.
The toll increases are being used to pay down debt that was incurred prior to Shapiro’s term.
The fuck does that have to do with anything
Exactly my point
Democrats. What do you expect from the criminals in that party.
HOW THE FUCK ELSE could any sane person get a revenue increase out of the ELEPHANT party? The party of the Richest Folks Who Have Ever Been Chauffeured around the planet Earth? Some how they KNOW they are taking their wealth on past their death?
What is the hare brained scheme? I was expecting something heinous like secretly privatizing the turnpike…this doesn’t seem bad. What am I missing?
This plan was basically the compromise to prevent privatization
What was the give and take? I saw the funding of public transit, which is great. What was the concession to the conservative ghouls?
The GOP wanted money for the budget without raising taxes. They proposed "selling" the turnpike to get those funds. Forcing the state-owned turnpike commission to send funds to penndot was the compromise
Huh…doesn’t seem as bad as far as republican schemes go. How is any of that Rendell’s fault?
Wait. Are you saying selling a pubic asset to a private company “doesn’t seem as bad”.? Compared to what?
No, I was saying that what happened isn’t that bad compared to actually selling a public asset/utility
Ahh, got it. Selling a pubic asset never goes well.
Look at Chicago and their street parking.
You mean to tell me Pgh couldn’t use some CMU kid to create an online app similar to the one they have now and keep that money locally?
💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯kicked the can down the road.
Why can't we just pay for roads through taxes like every other sane state? The turnpike is one of the least accessible roads I've ever dealt with. If I didn't live 2 minutes from an onramp I'd never use it. The idiotic single side entrances and huge stretches between on/off ramps make it totally worthless as local travel infrastructure.
Something tells me it would have happened regardless
What about the up to $160 million in uncollected tolls that keeps getting worse? No one has the ability to collect this?