Turnpike bankrolls PennDOT again
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The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has gotten another cash infusion from the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, part of a unique "public-public partnership" created by the state Legislature last summer to raise more money for roads, bridges and transit.
Turnpike spokesman Carl DeFebo confirmed that the turnpike electronically transferred $229.2 million to PennDOT's account yesterday.
It represented the third of four payments totalling $750 million that the toll road agency is to make to PennDOT for the 2007-08 fiscal year that ends June 30.
The first payment for $62.5 million was sent in August. The second, for $229.2 million, was sent in October. The final installment, also for $229.2 million, is due at the end of April.
The Turnpike Commission already has borrowed $532 million to help fund PennDOT and is scheduled to float a $450 million bond in May. The latter money will be used to make the final payment for 2007-08 and the first payment for the next fiscal year, when $800 million is due PennDOT.
In return, the Turnpike Commission will raise fares on the turnpike and establish tolls on Interstate 80.
The state Legislature fashioned the complicated plan to pay for extensive road and bridge repairs needed across the state. The Turnpike Commission is being used as the vehicle to raise the needed money.
The turnpike is authorized to borrow between $9.6 billion and $13 billion over the next 16 years as "transition funding" under legislation known as Act 44 that lawmakers passed and Gov. Ed Rendell signed in July. It will generate a total of $116 billion for transportation over the next 50 years.
The agency's indebtedness is to be repaid through a combination of tolling Interstate 80 across the state, starting in 2011 with high-tech toll barriers, and raising tolls on the existing turnpike system by 25 percent next year and 3 percent a year thereafter.
PennDOT and the Turnpike Commission have submitted a joint application to the Federal Highway Administration, seeking to toll I-80 as a pilot toll road conversion project. The proposal has generated considerable opposition from businesses, residents, elected officials and other interests along the 311-mile highway corridor through Central Pennsylvania and has yet to be approved by the highway administration.
First Published January 26, 2008 12:00 am
