Almost 40 SEPTA projects on halt due to Pa. Turnpike Lawsuit

[mcgrath618]

Looks like SEPTA can breathe easy... again...

[pumpers]

Any updates? Such as the status of the appeal?
Thx.

[ChesterValley]

A new update:https://www.post-gazette.com/news/trans ... 1907030151.

The commission issued nearly $800 million in bonds last month to cover its state-mandated payments for the 2018-19 fiscal year that ended June 30 and the new fiscal year that started Monday. It sent a check for $450 million to PennDOT last Thursday.

On the one hand this has calmed down. But on the other hand: https://outline.com/wv7cXm which was borrowed from here https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/pennsylv ... odys-warns,

Long-term, problems remain even if PTC transfers resume, Moody’s said, as state statute sharply reduces these transfers after 2022. That would place 30% of all transit funding at risk. Pennsylvania plans to replace the reduced transfers with existing sales taxes, but this, Moody’s said, would create a gap elsewhere in the state's general fund budget.

More than half of Pennsylvania Turnpike's annual revenue of $1.2 billion goes to debt payments. More than half its debt traces to the $6 billion-plus it has sent to PennDOT under a 2007 law, designed to pump more money into Pennsylvania’s highways and public transit systems.

That law wrongly assumed that the Federal Highway Administration would approve tolling on east-west Interstate 80, which runs parallel to the turnpike system.

I dunno where this leaves us. Frankly we need to pass a income tax or some sort of permanent tax because financially this is a duct tape job that keeps nearly failing every so often and will eventually break.

[JeffK]

Thanks to opposition in the legislature PA remains the only gas-producing state without a severance tax. The gas industry of course threatens that "we’ll take take our business to another state that doesn’t have a tax", like uhhhh umm ... or hmm, maybe ...

[sammy2009]

Most states have a severance tax right ? If i don't remember correctly who opposed the tolling of Interstate 80 ? was it the state or the federal gov't or something like that ? Either way something is going to have to be done in order for the state to pay fund its transportation systems and network....SEPTA also should be able to add a tax for the service area.

[ChesterValley]

It was the state of Pennsylvania under Ed Randell that tried the whole tolling I-80 scheme. The Fed's told them to pound sand citing that Federal dollars were used to build I-80 and that money cannot be used to non-highway related state improvements, that scheme was tried and denied three times. You can read more here https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pressroom/fhwa1006.cfm.

...the application did not meet the federal requirement that toll revenues be used exclusively for the facility being tolled.

We also tried that whole tolling thing for US 422, that died in the proposal stage. Granted that was just for 422 improvements, but I remember there was a proposal kicked around for reviving the Pottsville line with that money.

Somewhere at some point Harrisburg has to fund Mass Transit, lest we return to the 2013 funding crisis.

[rcthompson04]

Third Circuit denies appeal of truckers suing the PA Turnpike over use of tolls:

https://triblive.com/news/pennsylvania/ ... toll-suit/