Pa. auditor general warns of turnpike woes

Just as we concluded earlier this year that the expected annual toll hikes for Pennsylvania Turnpike users is not sustainable, the state’s Auditor General Eugene DePasquale has come out with an audit that agrees with us.

DePasquale’s office released a pointed warning this week that if the Turnpike Commission makes good on its threat to raise tolls annually for the next 28 years, as it said it would have to do to remain on a sound fiscal footing, it will destabilize the turnpike system, putting the nation’s first toll road in financial jeopardy.

DePasquale says we are already seeing signs of the problems arising with ever-rising tolls. He said an alarming number of motorists just don’t pay the tolls and ignore efforts to try to enforce payment. Some use the E-ZPass lanes, even though they do not have transponders, thus scamming the system this way.

DePasquale also says this problem will continue until the commission gets more enforcement power to get tough on violators. Current state law does not give the commission the authority to suspend licenses or impose a penalty other than a fine on vehicle owners who game the system.

Turnpike Commission Chairman Sean Logan acknowledged that the turnpike’s growing debt is a result of the massive payments the Turnpike Commission must pay to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

As part of the way to address this issue, we recommend that our legislators rethink the 2007 law which requires these hefty payments to PennDOT. If they don’t, we motorists will continue to see higher tolls.

In July 2007, then-Gov. Ed Rendell signed Act 44 into law, requiring the turnpike commission to make payments to PennDOT for statewide transportation needs. To provide the payments, the commission must increase tolls each year.

A key part of Act 44 was the application to the Federal Highway Administration for permission to place tolls on Interstate 80. After three years of studies, the federal government denied the application to convert I-80 to a toll road.

The commission must pay $450 million each year to PennDOT through 2022, then $50 million each year until 2057. By the end of the 50-year period, the commission will have paid nearly $24 billion if the law is not modified.

There is another major corrective needed: Stop the free trips for turnpike employees, legislators, contractors and others, even when they are on personal business. We have to pay when we use the toll road; why shouldn’t they?

DePasquale’s office said the turnpike commission has issued about 2,100 badges and 900 transponders to its workers, providing them with more than $1.2 million in free trips between June 2014 and this past February. The commission also provided more than $4 million worth of free travel to about 5,000 consultants, contractors and state government officials.

His office recommends eliminating or greatly reducing this unnecessary boondoggle.

Affirming what we said in this space earlier this year, DePasquale’s audit predicts that at some point the average turnpike user will be turned off by the annual hikes and seek alternate routes, and, in the process, reduce significantly the anticipated revenues.

The turnpike commission announced earlier this year that tolls are likely to increase every year through 2044. That means that the driver of a car without E-ZPass going from the Mahoning Valley interchange near Lehighton to the Lehigh Valley interchange near Allentown — a distance of 18 miles — will pay $12.24 each way in 2044 compared with $2.95 each way today.

DePasquale used another eye-popping example. A passenger vehicle’s 270-mile trip on the east-west part of the turnpike from Valley Forge to Pittsburgh would go from $23 today to $67 by 2044. A five-axle truck whose driver pays $124 now would pay $356 for the same trip 28 years from now.

While turnpike Commissioner Logan did not address the issue of free trips for his employees and others, he did say that he and his agency are looking forward to working with DePasquale’s office to try to get “meaningful tolling enforcement legislation what will allow all tolling agencies in the state to make sure motorists pay their fair share.”

If you’d like to know why so many motorists get away with not paying, it’s easy. The commission sends out summonses to offenders, but these are routinely ignored because the commission has no enforcement power. Sure, it can tack on interest and other charges, but if it has no club, what good is it?

The turnpike uses a collection agency to try to collect the unpaid tolls, but these efforts are of limited effectiveness, Logan admits.

We agree with the auditor general’s report, which recommends that the turnpike authority be given the power to suspend licenses and to set varying fines for repeat offenders. It also suggests that the names of continuing and flagrant violators be published in local newspapers and online to shame them into paying what they owe and to curtail their unacceptable behavior.

The report suggests that Pennsylvania have a reciprocal enforcement program with other states. It also recommended that the turnpike consider letting toll collectors accept credit and debit cards.

If corrective action is not taken, and soon, the turnpike will suck us motorists dry, and, in the process, destroy one of the industrial age’s most magnificent infrastructure achievements.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com