Keeping up the guard against raids on toll road receipts

Pennsylvania has a new governor, Republican Tom Corbett, and he will have, of course, a new cabinet. At least one of those new appointments is cause for concern for those of us who believe Interstate 80 should remain a freeway.

Corbett nominated Barry Schoch, vice president of McCormick Taylor, a Philadelphia-based transportation planning and engineering firm, as Secretary of Transportation.

Schoch has been in the news in recent years as the point man in Pennsylvania’s efforts to turn I-80 into a toll road. The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission paid McCormick Taylor more than $22 million over three years for engineering and preliminary design work on the ill-fated I-80 tolling effort.

While it was a Turnpike Commission project, tolling I-80 had the enthusiastic support of then Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, and many in Harrisburg who wanted to turn I-80 into a cash cow for other state highway and transportation budget items, from road and bridge construction to mass transportation.

These schemes to tap toll road proceeds are becoming increasingly popular as state governments struggle to balance budgets that both Republicans and Democrats have allowed to balloon.

The federal Department of Transportation soundly rejected Pennsylvania’s bid to place tolls on the highway that was built primarily with federal money to stretch across the Keystone state from New Jersey to the Ohio line, here in Hubbard Township.

Never say never

But that rejection is no guarantee that Pennsylvania won’t try again, especially with Schoch, a man whose company was paid handsomely to plan the project, at the head of the department. The feds recognized that Pennsylvania was attempting to divert revenue from I-80 to the Motor Vehicle Fund via rental payments from the Turnpike Commission to PennDOT. It’s not a stretch to suspect that Schoch may have some thoughts on how to work around those federal objections in a new bid to toll I-80.

Legislators in Harrisburg, especially those who recognize the economic benefit of a free cross-state route, should not be reluctant to question Schoch at his confirmation hearing.

Pennsylvanians should also be keeping an eye on other attempts by their lawmakers to raid the highway piggybank. During the gubernatorial campaign there was talk of disbanding the independent Turnpike Commission and rolling the turnpike into the Department of Transportation. That’s just another way of trying to divert turnpike tolls to non-turnpike uses.

If there must be toll roads, the tolls should pay only for the construction, repair and maintenance of those roads. People who pay a toll for traveling the Pennsylvania Turnpike (or the Ohio Turnpike) should not be paying increased rates to subsidize other highway projects or to bulk up the general fund.

That’s not only a matter of fairness to the turnpike’s customers, it’s a matter of sound, conservative governance.