“Of that amount, $3.625 billion has provided financial assistance to the commonwealth’s MASS TRANSIT AGENCIES and $2.25 billion has helped to fund off-Turnpike highway and bridge construction.”
So much for the line that ‘toll road users only pay for the road’ crap that the toll road lobby pushes here and elsewhere.
A decade or so ago, Pennsylvania applied to the feds to put tolls on Interstate 80 - a wet dream for them, since most of the traffic on that highway are out-of-state people (particularly the trucks). The federal law allowed conversion to tolls, but only if the toll money would be used to maintain the highway and NOTHING ELSE. Pennsylvania instead wanted to do the stunt they do with their Turnpike and hand most of the toll money to the big-city mayors. The feds said “screw-you, follow the law”. Instead of following the law, Pennsylvania determined that the tolls would have to be so low if only used to maintain the highway, that they dropped the whole idea.
And that’s the dirty little secret - if tolls are ONLY used for their particular highways, they would be MUCH LOWER than they presently are...but since politicians get away with diverting toll money, they’ll continue to do so.
The concept of a toll road isn’t bad if the money is used just for the road. When the state starts taking part of the toll for “green” transportation or mass transit or some other slush fund, then it falls apart.
Plus, there are a handful of toll roads in Texas that are constructed using gas tax revenues, rather than toll bonds.
What a polite way of saying that the political crooks tax the snot out of citizens to their fund pet projects which, coincidentally, also helps them get reelected and consolidate power.