Pennsylvania

Whether the Feds will go along with the state plan to toll PA/I-80 is one of the hottest political issues in the state right now with dire predictions being made about the retrenchments that will be needed at state agencies if the US Secretary Transportation says no. At stake is an annual half a billion dollars the Pennsylvania Turnpike is due to pay the state with I-80 tolled that will be lost from another No.

Someone asked recently what were the three toughest PR jobs in tolling in north America. The answer in ascending order of difficulty:

"Pennsylvania Independent" reports that the Obama administration will say "No" to the Pennsylvania Turnpike application to toll I-80.

S Michael Palermo a former associate executive director at the Pennsylvania Turnpike and longtime flunkey to jailed state senator Vincent Fumo apologized in US District Court today, and said he had been wrong to sign on for no-work contracts with agencies of the state of Pennsylvania.

US transport secretary Ray LaHood told four members of a Pennsylvania congressional delegation that a US decision on whether I-80 can be tolled will be made "very soon." This is reported today by US Rep Glenn 'GT' Thompson (Repub) from the State College area of central northern part of the state where I-80 is the major east-west artery.

Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell says "all" transit agencies in the state will benefit from tolls on I-80. Capitolwire out of Harrisburg PA reports that Rendell made the statement at a conference of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania late last year.

Former US congressman and state senator John Peterson calls the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission a "cauldron of corruption" and the state Senate's "patronage pit" in a column running in state newspapers.

The large US Department of Justice prosecution that put the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission's longtime state senate patron Vincent Fumo into jail for four and a half years for 137 counts of thievery and corruption was run by Patrick Meehan, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Former Pennsylvania Turnpike staffer and "consultant" S Michael Palermo, 69, pled guilty to fraud today in US District Court in Philadelphia. Charged with receiving $290k in state funds through phony work contracts arranged with Democrat Senate leader Vincent Fumo, Palermo admitted receiving the payoffs and agreed to repay the money to the state in return for 12 months house arrest and five years probation.

Two years after their first shot at getting the Feds to approve tolling I-80 at points across the state the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and PennDOT are trying again. They say they should have the formal application including supporting studies ready for the Feds by late this fall.

Some hope the Obama administration will be more sympathetic than the Bush administration.

By the fall of 2010 West Virginia DOT officials say, their tail end portion of the Mon Fayette Expressway (MFE) should be open to traffic. It has been a $150m project only about 6.2km, 3.85mi long and it will have taken six years but it involves a nice 3-level 'T' interchange at I-68 the southern end of the MFE, relocation of local roads, a couple of long bridges, wetlands mitigation and some deep cuts and fills for 2x2 lane expressway.

Convicted on all 137 counts of corruption and thievery in a US Court ex-senator Vincent Fumo was today sentenced to 55 months in jail and ordered to make $2m in restitution and pay $411k in fines. Fumo, 66,  who was for years a dominant figure in the state senate stole an estimated $3.5m from the state and from non-profits he ran.

A previously unpublished Memorandum written by the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) chief counsel at the time, Marcus J Lemon, explains rather clearly the thinking behind the US Government rejection last September of the second Pennsylvania application to toll I-80.

Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission will be issuing an RFP shortly for a planning study of the future of their Allegheny Mountain tunnels. Two 2-lane tubes 1850m long they date back to 1940 and 1965. A study of alternatives in the 1990s concluded the tunnels should be abandoned in favor of a 67m (220ft) deep cut to the north of the tunnels.

Allen Biehler, chairman of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and secretary of transportation says the state will reapply to the feds to get permission to toll I-80. Biehler said this at a meeting of the state House Democratic Policy Committee May 26 according to an account circulated by legislative staffers.

A move to block any new state application to toll PA/I-80 failed this week in the Pennsylvania state house. It voted 106 to 87 not to accept the measure  as an addition to a teenage driver safety bill. Opponents of the move said the effort was unconstitutional in that it changed the intent of the bill. House transportation committee chair Joseph Markosek led opposition to the move.

Montgomery County is leading toll revenue and engineering studies and public outreach for major rail and road improvements in the US422 corridor northwest of Philadelphia to be funded by collecting all-electronic tolls on the presently untolled highway.

Vincent Fumo, the Pennsylvasnia Turnpike's leading legislative patron while a Democrat state senator and Ruth Arnao, wife of the chairman of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission have been found guilty on all 182 counts in the big corruption case against them tried in Philadelphia by the US Government.

A federal bill intended to block tolling of I-80 in Pennsylvania by a congressman in the corridor could stymie many other major toll based initiatives to improve mobility. The bill HR1071 filed last week in the US House of Representatives by congressman Glenn 'GT' Thompson (R-PA) is titled "Keeping America's Freeways Free Act."

Thompson is the member for Pennsylvania District 5 which covers a large tract on and north of PA/I-80. (See map nearby)

Longtime powerbroker in the Pennsylvania state senate Vincent Fumo on trial for corruption in federal court in Philadelphia used some Blagojevich style language about a Philadelphia Daily News reporter Erin Einhorn in an email picked up by the Feds. The email was introduced in the trial today as an exhibit.

Fumo emailed his press spokesman Gary Tuma: