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Plan to put tolls on Route 422 appears dead for now

Opponents of a plan to put tolls on Route 422 claimed victory Wednesday as regional planners put the brakes on the controversial proposal.

Opponents of a plan to put tolls on Route 422 claimed victory Wednesday as regional planners put the brakes on the controversial proposal.

Issuing the final result of a yearlong study, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission downplayed tolls as only one of several options available to raise the estimated $750 million needed to improve the perpetually gridlocked highway.

The commission touted a combination of statewide fee increases and tax hikes as potential alternatives, echoing suggestions from a state transportation funding committee over the summer.

"We heard people's reactions," commission head Barry Seymour said. "They would rather see a comprehensive statewide solution . . . than tolling."

Seymour's comments came a month after his organization launched a multipronged public relations campaign hoping to drum up support for tolls as the only feasible option to provide highway funding anytime soon.

Local lawmakers - many of whom were quick to express opposition - lauded Wednesday's report as a sign that the public voice had won out.

"I am happy that the DVRPC is finally listening to the people," Warren Kampf (R., Chester) said in an e-mailed statement.

More than 110,000 daily commuters clog 422's 25-mile stretch from Reading to King of Prussia, one of the fastest-growing corridors in the region. And though plans to add lanes, bridges, and a commuter rail service could ease that congestion over the next several years, money to pay for the projects is scarce.

Despite a nearly $800 million price tag for suggested improvements, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has allocated only $243 million for the road over the next eight years.

The DVRPC's toll proposal sought to bridge that gap by charging an 11-cent-per-mile access fee along the most heavily traveled stretches. A local toll authority would have collected all proceeds and earmarked them solely for projects along the 422 corridor.

But the plan encountered opposition from the start.

At a community meeting in Royersford last month, commuters shouted down arguments from Seymour and other toll proponents.

Support from lawmakers - whose votes were necessary to put the plan into action - was also lacking.

In June, the DVRPC presented a detailed draft of its proposal to Gov. Corbett's Transportation Funding Advisory Commission. But the panel did not mention local toll authorities or 422 in a final report sent to the governor.

Instead, it suggested increasing vehicle-registration and driver's license fees as well as a hike in wholesale gasoline taxes to solve Pennsylvania's road-funding crisis.

In a cover letter to Wednesday's DVRPC report, Seymour said those other revenue streams could provide the money necessary to fix 422 and cited tolls as an option to be revisited only if the transportation committee's proposals fail in the legislature. But the report made little mention of those alternatives.

Because money from increased fees and tax hikes would go into state coffers, it remains unclear what share could come back to 422 and how quickly money for congestion-relieving improvements could be raised.

"It's a hard time to put those proposals out there," Seymour said. "Right now, anything that talks about spending more public dollars is a sensitive subject."

State legislators have yet to address the transportation committee's proposals but remained hopeful that the panel presented enough options to prevent a return to talk of tolls.

"We hoped to put a stake in the heart of 422 tolling," State Rep. Mike Vereb (R., Montgomery) said. "At least we put it on pause for now."