Pennsylvania court blocks Gov. Wolf’s bridge tolling plan

HARRISBURG – A state court docket on Thursday completely blocked Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to toll as many as 9 main bridges on interstates in Pennsylvania, siding with three Pittsburgh-area municipalities that argued that his administration had violated procedures in attending to the superior stage of contemplating the concept.

A panel of Commonwealth Court docket judges granted the municipalities’ request to successfully declare the plan useless as a result of Wolf’s Division of Transportation had not adopted the regulation.

One key aspect on which the court docket agreed with the municipalities is the declare that PennDOT was required to suggest particular bridges to toll when it requested the Public-Non-public Transportation Partnership Board in 2020 for permission to maneuver ahead with a bridge-tolling plan.

PennDOT didn’t, nevertheless, determine particular bridges it wished to toll till months after the board permitted a bridge-tolling plan.

Consequently, events doubtlessly affected by a tolling challenge — akin to a municipality — had no alternative to meaningfully give enter to the method earlier than the board’s determination, the court docket mentioned.

Republican lawmakers hailed the choice, whereas Wolf’s administration wouldn’t instantly say whether or not it should enchantment it to the state Supreme Court docket.

A lawyer for the municipalities — Bridgeville Borough, Collier Township and South Fayette Township — mentioned he noticed no foundation for the administration to enchantment, saying that it had tried to get the lawsuit dismissed on a technicality.

“They nearly admitted they did not comply with the statute,” lawyer John M. Smith mentioned.

The loss for Wolf’s administration was the second in a row: A Commonwealth Court docket decide in a separate case in Might had imposed a short lived injunction on the tolling initiatives.

PennDOT has mentioned that it was holding hearings and giving alternatives for native enter on every proposed bridge tolling challenge.

Wolf’s push for tolling comes as states more and more look to consumer charges to make up for declining fuel tax income that’s not maintaining with the calls for of fixing highways and bridges.

It additionally comes amid rising fuel costs and spurred opposition from some communities. Wolf might attempt to begin the method over, however he has lower than seven months left in workplace, and neither of his potential successors in November’s election help it.

PennDOT has mentioned the bridge-tolling cash is important to fund badly wanted upgrades at a time when the state’s present freeway and bridge funds for development and upkeep is lower than half of the $15 billion that’s wanted to maintain Pennsylvania’s highways and bridges in good situation and ease main site visitors bottlenecks.

Wolf, a Democrat, final 12 months known as for phasing out the fuel tax, and empaneled a fee that produced suggestions to interchange the cash, leaning closely on shifting to a vehicle-miles-traveled price that quite a few states are exploring.

In a press release, Wolf’s administration mentioned lawmakers have “failed to supply any options” past passing a 2012 regulation that created the Public-Non-public Transportation Partnership Board to assist streamline the approval, funding and contracting for main initiatives.

In latest months, Republican lawmakers have argued that the Wolf administration might as an alternative use federal infrastructure assist or borrow the cash from the federal authorities.

However PennDOT has mentioned neither helps repair a long-term hole of billions of {dollars} in freeway development and upkeep funding.

Senate Republican leaders insisted Thursday in a press release that they’re able to “talk about how we must always fund our street and bridge initiatives shifting ahead.”