With no I-80 tolls, a $450 million gap looms

Pennsylvania officials, nervously awaiting a federal decision on their request to place tolls on I-80, have no plans on how to fill a $450 million budget hole if the feds once again reject the tolling request.

"It will be transportation-funding armageddon. It will be infrastructure nuclear winter," said State Rep. Joseph Markosek, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, struggling to find words sufficiently apocalyptic.

The state wants to make I-80 a toll road for its 311-mile length across northern Pennsylvania. The Federal Highway Administration has twice denied the state's bid to do so.

The third application was filed Oct. 29, and a decision is expected soon, perhaps this week.

Supporters of the tolls, including transit agencies and local politicians, have launched a last-minute lobbying campaign to urge senators and representatives to push for approval.

"The economic future and vitality of the Commonwealth is in jeopardy unless immediate action is taken to toll Interstate 80," said a "call to action" e-mail sent Friday by PenTrans, a transit advocacy group.

"Without these resources, we can anticipate a permanent annual loss in funding - $350 million for Highways and $150 million for Transit - statewide. This is a [nearly] $500 million LOSS that will translate into fewer permanent jobs and significantly reduced opportunities for contractors and engineers who support public transit and highway construction and revitalization initiatives."

SEPTA general manager Joseph Casey said major projects, such as automated fare collection on trains and buses and rebuilding the City Hall subway station, could be jeopardized if money from I-80 tolls was not forthcoming.

Revenue from I-80 tolls was a linchpin of the transportation-funding Act 44 passed by the legislature in 2007. The lawmakers assumed that higher tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and new tolls on I-80 would pay for $900 million-a-year payments from the Turnpike Commission to PennDot for transportation projects. The Turnpike Commission for 30 months has been borrowing the money to make the payments, hoping to be paid back by those tolls.

By June 30, the Turnpike Commission will have paid $2.5 billion to the state for highways and transit projects.

Without tolls on I-80, the transportation funding from the Turnpike Commission would be cut in half, to $450 million a year, beginning in July. Among the biggest losers would be SEPTA, which would not get $120 million a year in anticipated funding.

"We had banked on this money," Casey said. "All these projects will have to be pushed back."

Nancy Singer, a spokeswoman for the Federal Highway Administration, said the agency was continuing to study the state's application. She declined to say how soon a decision might come.

FHWA approval is needed because I-80 was built with federal funding as part of the free interstate highway system.

Residents, businesses, and politicians in northern Pennsylvania oppose tolls on I-80, contending they would cripple the region's economy and divert heavy truck traffic onto local roads.

U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, a Republican from northwest Pennsylvania who has been a leader of the opposition to I-80 tolls, said Friday he was optimistic that U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood "will follow the letter of the law and deny the tolling plan for the third time. I am equally hopeful that this will encourage the legislature to go back to the drawing board and find equitable and sustainable alternatives to tolling I-80."

The state has no alternative plan for coming up with the money for roads and transit if the I-80 tolls are rejected.

"There simply is no Plan B," said Ed Wilson, acting president of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, a group focused on sustainable development and improvement of transit. "We think there's been plenty of time and there certainly have been indications that tolling I-80 may not be approved, so there should have been a backup plan."

Wilson said his group would work with environmental and other groups to look for alternatives if the I-80 tolls are rejected.

Those could include increases in the gas tax, motor vehicle registration fees, and the real estate transfer tax, he said.

"Probably what's needed will be a combination of things. . . . There are lots of options that need to be considered," Wilson said.

Markosek said there was no support for tax increases in the legislature, especially in this, an election year.

"I've been saying all along that tolling I-80 is Plan B," he said. "Plan A was the Transportation Funding and Reform Commission," which issued a report in November 2006, suggesting a hike in gas taxes, sales taxes, and real estate taxes.

"That was rejected, so we went to Plan B, tolling I-80.

"If this fails, we'll be looking at the rest of the alphabet, and they don't get any easier."

Markosek said a legislative substitute for tolls on I-80 was unlikely "unless there is a crisis where we have major infrastructure failings."

Gov. Rendell is in Washington today for a meeting of the National Governors Association, where he might get an opportunity to speak to LaHood and other officials.

"He's been talking to Secretary LaHood and DOT officials for months," Rendell press secretary Gary Tuma said. "We've tried to provide as much hard, substantive material as we can." Tuma said he did not know if Rendell would meet with LaHood during the governors conference.

The feds first rejected the state's application Dec. 13, 2007. A revised application was denied Sept. 11, 2008.

The Turnpike Commission, which submitted its third bid last October, would use I-80 tolls to help provide $83 billion over 50 years for highways and transit, turnpike spokesman Carl DeFebo said. That's about $60 billion more than the state would get without the tolls, he said.