Governor Tom Wolf (D-PA) announced this week that his administration is reviewing the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court’s order halting a plan to toll as many as nine of Pennsylvania’s bridges on Interstate 78, Interstate 79, Interstate 80, Interstate 81, and Interstate 83.
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s (PennDOT) board voted in November 2020 to toll bridges it hoped to repair or replace, though it was not decided whether that would apply to all nine bridges.
Cumberland County, Bridgeville Borough, South Fayette Township, and Collier Township later sued the administration, asserting that the plan was unconstitutional. The court, whose temporary injunction was authored by Judge Ellen Ceisler (D), required the commonwealth to cease any work associated with the tolling plans. The court will later rule as to whether the projects can be resumed.
At issue is whether the governor has established that the Pennsylvania General Assembly, in passing Act 88 of 2012, ceded its own authority to vote on such a tolling decision.
If Wolf is unable to successfully appeal the commonwealth court’s ruling, his hope of tolling the interstates would seem effectively dead. The term-limited governor will leave office after this year and both gubernatorial nominees, Republican state Senator Doug Mastriano and Democratic State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, oppose the plan.
Republicans state lawmakers largely celebrated the court’s decision.
“I’m very hopeful this will become a permanent injunction,” State Representative Jason Ortitay (R-Bridgeville) said in a statement. “I urge PennDOT to not waste more taxpayer dollars by appealing this decision. It’s time for the agency and the Wolf administration to admit they were wrong and come to the table to dialogue, not rule as a dictator.”
GOP legislators touted a measure the state House of Representatives passed last November clarifying that the state legislature must approve any public-private partnership involving the tolling of the Keystone State’s highways. Democrats largely opposed the legislation.
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Pennsylvania Daily Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Tom Wolf” by Tom Wolf. CC BY 2.0.
