[MR] PA Turnpike toll increase

[Olwen the Odd]

This, off the www.paturnpike.com website:

C  O  M  M  I  S  S  I  O  N       N  E  W  S       R  E  L  E  A  S  E

Jan. 21, 2004

PA. TURNPIKE COMMISSION APPROVES FIRST TOLL INCREASE IN OVER 13 YEARS

Every penny of the increase will be spent on improving the road.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (Jan. 21, 2004) — The five-member Pennsylvania Turnpike 
Commission yesterday unanimously approved a staff-recommended toll increase. 
The new rate is, on average, 1.8 cents per mile more for cars and 5.3 cents 
per mile more for trucks. (The average car rate jumps from 4.1 cents per 
mile to 5.9 cents per mile; the average truck rate increases from 12.4 to 
17.7 cents per mile.)

The new rates become effective Sunday Aug. 1, 2004.

The last Pennsylvania Turnpike toll increase occurred June 1, 1991.

Turnpike CEO Joseph G. Brimmeier said the increase simply keeps pace with 
inflation since the last price hike. According to the Consumer Price Index 
or CPI, the cost of tolls will not increase at a higher rate than other 
goods including medicine, food, gas, or homes.

Brimmeier said the increase will allow the Turnpike to double its current 
rate of capital spending over the next 10 years, funding critical 
infrastructure improvements along the aging east-west “Main Line” and 
Northeast Extension – projects that, if not completed, threaten the safety 
and economic viability of a vital commercial highway system that is expected 
to carry 183 million vehicles in 2004.

“Our Turnpike is a safe road today,” Brimmeier said. “But, if we do not 
implement a toll hike, the potential clearly exists for the road to become 
unsafe.”

With current revenues, it will take 104 years to reconstruct the Turnpike; 
but with the increase, the reconstruction will be completed in just 30 
years.

“We will also be able to widen the road where it tends to bottleneck, build 
new ramps, more adequate shoulders and sound walls, eliminate dangerous 
curves, improve interchanges and make E-ZPass work even better for drivers,” 
Brimmeier added.

“Not one penny of the increase will go toward new administration costs or 
increased bureaucracy,” Brimmeier said. “Further, I pledge that this will be 
the last toll increase for at least the remainder of this decade, so 
Pennsylvania Turnpike customers can once again enjoy a respite from toll 
increases while driving a better, safer road.
------------------------>>

That being said, my trip beginning at Breezewood to Cranberry currently is 
$5.60 in a car (trucks are more).  August 1st it will be $8.00.  There is a 
calculator on the website.  Of course, there is no longer a Cranberry exit 
as that was paid for and the end toll plaza moved eastward.  The calculator 
does not seem to take that into consideration.

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