Oct 14, 2002 By Joan Miles 5 min read

After 40 years on the launch pad, the Mon-Fayette Expressway and Southern Beltway toll roads have taken on an almost cosmic significance in southwestern Pennsylvania – touted by some as the highway to economic salvation, reviled by others as the road to ruin. While debate runs high among citizens, most politicians have fallen in line behind these projects like asteroids captured in a great gravitational pull.

Yet we wonder, would elected officials find toll road support so comfortable if they knew they would have to raise gas taxes, not once but possibly three times to fund it? Many voters already know and all will soon learn that the toll roads are a gaping black hole – a fiscal one – threatening to swallow everything in its orbit.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission tells us that it will cost $1.89 billion to complete the Mon-Fayette toll road. That’s nearly $2 billion for a mere 23 miles of limited access highway. And while the cost is scandalously high, the financing is truly otherworldly.

Two plans have been launched to pay for the toll roads. The first proposes to raise more than $1.4 billion through bonding of revenue from tax increases – both gas taxes and higher vehicle registration fees. The turnpike claims that this financing will not compete with funding other transportation projects throughout the state.

But its plan calls for bonds to be issued in 2004, 2012 and 2020, requiring three separate planned gas tax hikes over the next 18 years. These bonds would saddle Pennsylvanians with at least 50 to 80 years of additional debt. And while they’re incurring new debt, the Turnpike Commission also proposes to raise another $460 million through refinancing outstanding bonds, further increasing the time and cost to Pennsylvania taxpayers of repaying the large sums already borrowed for toll roads.

Of course, this all depends on the state legislators’ willingness to raise taxes. If politicians supporting the toll roads are prepared to vote for three successive gas tax hikes to support a few miles of toll road, they should tell the voters now – before election day. They should tell the voters that these taxes are permanent, even if the market price of oil skyrockets in times of short supply. And they should tell voters that they would be willing to add even more taxes as other projects and regions demand more money.

It seems that even the Mon-Fayette boosters recognize that these tax increases are hard to sell. And that’s why they have another plan up their sleeves. Plan H (apparently, they’ve already run through Plans B through G) is an even more insidious scheme hatched by certain legislators and special interests in southwestern Pennsylvania to raise the billions needed.

Plan H would carve out more than $100 million each year for 20 years from the total pool of transportation funds Pennsylvania receives from the federal government. This money would automatically be skimmed off the top before any funds are distributed throughout the state.

By doing this, every other region would be forced to sacrifice its fair share of money for new roads and certain transit improvements, as well as many bridge repairs and other maintenance projects, for two decades. Playing on the title of one of the worst science fiction films ever released; this funding scheme should be dubbed “Plan H from Outer Space.”

Last month, PennFuture unveiled another transportation plan. This one developed by local citizens working with national and local engineers, architects and planners. The citizens’ plan would create a 62-mile network of urban boulevards and add 23 miles of new transit lines to the region. That’s almost four times as many transportation improvements as those proposed in the turnpike plan. And yet our plan would cost less than $32 million per mile versus the toll road cost of more than $82 million per mile.

The citizens’ plan provides more and better local jobs paying workers 53 cents out of every dollar spent, while the turnpike plan pays workers only 35 cents for every dollar.

The citizens’ plan will provide real economic benefit to the towns of the Mon Valley and cause far fewer environmental impacts. Finally, our plan calls for issuing only $385 million of bonds – $1 billion less than the turnpike plan – and so will cause far less pain at the pump. And it doesn’t play one region against another by requiring mandatory giveaways from the state’s federal transportation funds – instead we recommend a balanced and realistic mix of federal, state and local funding.

A few leaders have charted their own course. Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy has been vocal about what is wrong with the Mon-Fayette toll road. City Councilman Bill Peduto has openly criticized the negative impacts the toll road would have on the city and called for creative alternatives.

However, while several other elected officials have told us confidentially that they dislike the toll roads, they fear the political consequences of speaking out against them.

Politicians who have lined up behind the toll road should come clean and admit the truth: the Mon-Fayette is a boon-doggle that will result in higher taxes for all while benefiting just a few. Or they can rethink their positions and come back down to earth, where the voters are.

Joan Miles is the outreach coordinator for PennFuture.