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Interstate 80 Toll Hearing

Interstate 80 Toll Hearing - Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at 5:01PM EST

Reported by: Laurie Monteforte
Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008 @05:01pm EST
STROUDSBURG, MONROE COUNTY - Pennsylvania has a plan that would put ten toll booths along Interstate 80. Some officials say it would bring in about 800-million-dollars a year to improve roads. But others say it would cost more than that in jobs, safety, and traffic congestion.

You pay a toll when you come into Pennsylvania and if some lawmakers get their way, you'll pay a toll when you drive through Pennsylvania. It's a plan that doesn't sit well with business people.

Tom Smedley represents the Yellow Roadway Company. Its drivers make 500 trips a day across the state. Smedley estimated, "Approximately five minutes per toll, ten tolls, fifty minutes, let's call it an hour. Now you've increased the driving time through Pennsylvania by one hour on a driver."

And time is money. Combine time lost with toll expenditures and in one year Yellow Roadway will have to spend more to drive Interstate 80 than it earns - about 10-million-dollars more.

"All of those costs will be passed down to all customers and that will trickle down to all consumers," said Smedley.

Yellow Roadway has a facility in Tannersville. If tolls get too expensive they might have to close that office. "The corporation could always look to reroute thus business away from our facility and close the facility. That's a loss of 536 jobs."

Many people who worry about tolls on the Intestate met with state lawmakers to voice their concerns in Stroudsburg Tuesday.

State Representative Mario Scavello said, "Should that toll go in Tannersville we'd have gridlock here. Our roads can't handle it. There's no way that we can allow it to happen."

Scavello hosted the meeting where several people testified how tolls would hurt them. The representative said he will do everything he can to help those people.

Scavello also said we wouldn't even have to consider tolls if the state would use the gas tax to fix roads. That tax brings in about 600-million-dollars a year. Scavello said that's supposed to go to road repairs but other state officials keep giving it to other causes.
 


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