Express your outrage over I-80 tolls at hearing

Here’s hoping that residents of Mercer and Lawrence counties turn out in droves Monday to a public hearing at Grove City College to vent outrage and frustration over plans to charge tolls on Interstate 80 throughout the Keystone State.

The misguided legislation enacting the tolls rocketed through the state Legislature this fall. It did so at the expense of detailed study of the tolls’ potentially adverse economic impact and with no consideration of alternatives to raise funds or, better yet, cut spending to balance the state’s transportation budget.

U.S. Rep. Phil English, whose district includes the Shenango Valley through which I-80 traverses, is mad as a hornet over tolling I-80. He’s also frustrated that House members removed a provision from the federal transportation bill that would have prohibited placing tolls on federal highways. He has charged Democrats with putting politics above people when they removed the amendment before it got to a full vote.

We share English’s anger and are disturbed that his provision was killed, but now is not the time to overly politicize the debate. Now is the time to mount pressure on Pennsylvania legislators of all political persuasions and state Transportation officials to slam the brakes on the ill-advised toll plan.

Consider the impact

Voices of reason must prevail. That means encouraging officials to look more closely at the potentially devastating impact the toll plan will have on commerce along the freeway, particularly in the Shenango Valley, which can ill afford any new blows to its commercial livelihood.

That also means putting public officials in the executive and legislative branches of state government on notice that they, too, must face the realities of balancing budgets without passing the buck to residents who can least afford it.

And the toll plan in its early form is not cheap. It would cost about $50 for a round-trip drive on the pike and $200 for trucks. With gas prices showing no signs of falling anytime soon, can the legislators dream up any more plots to discourage auto travel in the Keystone State?

The hearing will be from 4 p.m. to 8 p..m. in the J. Howard Pew Fine Arts Building at Grove City.

As Laure Cioffi reports in an A1 story in today’s Vindicator, opponents have dominated other hearings held thus far in the state. We hope Shenango Valley residents, as well as supporters from Ohio who rely on free passage on the interstate, turn up the heat so high at Monday’s hearing that state legislators will place a permanent roadblock to the state’s unseemly get-rich-quick scheme.