Life on the Road – Trucking News Blog

You’d have to not only have your head buried in the sand to miss the fact that tolling the Interstate system is a big-time issue right now – you’d have to be under the beach entirely! Nearly every state has some scheme to toll the so-called freeways to “pay for the road maintenance.” Truckers have been saying for years that they have paid enough to cover ALL of the maintenance but didn’t have the figures to back it up. They have now.

Study Shows Truckers Already Pay For I-80 in Pennsylvania

The business about the I-80 corridor in Pennsylvania has been going on for years. Gov Ed Rendell and some mighty powerful Pennsylvania movers and shakers have been determined to put tolls on I-80 in opposition to many residents and businesses that live and do business along the corridor. Trucking companies have been howling too, but as usual, nobody listens to them much. The issue’s so big that the ATA and OOIDA have actually been on the same side on this all along. As every trucker knows, there are only two highways going east-west across Pennsylvania . . and one of them is already a toll road. Secondary roads in many areas are impassible for eighteen-wheelers so there’s really no way around it. I-80 is hard to maintain due to the terrain and constantly under construction, as is I-76. And the PA Pike has some of the highest tolls in the country.

My daily Landline News update this morning had a blurb on a new study that has been released by the No Tolls on I-80 Coalition. The study, completed by Tracy Miller, associate professor of economics at Grove City College, shows that trucks clearly pay MORE than the budgeted amount for I-80 maintenance every year in fuel taxes and usage fees . . .and adding the amount paid by cars is half that amount again! PennDOT budgets about $80 million for I-80 maintenance: large trucks pay about $90 million each year. And, cars and light trucks add another $40 million. When I read the study, the fuel mileage for big trucks was figured at nine miles per gallon of diesel. So even these numbers are low – the true figure would probably pay to make major improvements to the road!

So, Who Wants The Tolls?

A couple of quotes from State legislators make it clear who actually benefits from tolling I-80 . . .and it isn’t truckers or businesses along the highway.

“A majority of it goes to the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas. It’s funding for their mass transit and infrastructure needs,” said state Sen. Robert Robbins, R-Mercer.”They want to take our money and use it for their transit systems and roads,” agreed state Rep. Scott Hutchinson, R-Venango”. Anybody but your average dispatcher can tell you that I-80 doesn’t come anywhere near either of these cities!

An explanation from the No Tolls On I-80 Coalition clarifies that  Gov Rendell really screwed the pooch on the budget this time: because he shoved thru a legislative act to toll the highway without public comment and built a budget around it, a loss of proposed tolling income will cut the State highway budget in half, from $900 million to $450 million. That other $450 million was money that truckers were going to contribute to Philly and Pittsburgh to subsidize metro bus systems, light rail and the like – thing they NEVER use. Since the FHWA turned down the first application made for permission to toll I-80, the state is back to square one. This time, with the evidence provided by this study, they may get a flat “NO”. We can only hope.

Given the information in this study, we can just about conjecture that every other state’s tolling scheme would show about the same results. Lets hope other studies are commissioned in these other states to provide actual figures. It’s good ammunition for one battle in part of a larger war. If legislators and citizens want the public dollar to pay for things like mass transit, bike paths and new downtown ‘streetscapes’, its time to tax for them directly, not expect truckers to pay for it.  In the word of Margaret Thatcher: “Socialism is great until you run out of someone else’s money”.