Tolls on I-80?

To the editor:

A trek across Pennsylvania on a tolled I-80 would cost motorists approximately $25, according to the state's preliminary figures.

Pennsylvania's mass-transit money pit will get a share. Revenues also will pay debt service on billions to be borrowed by the state Turnpike Commission.

Oh, and there will be a 25 percent turnpike toll hike in 2009, after which tolls will rise three percent annually.

All this from a transportation funding plan long on pie in the sky but lacking many specifics. It was hatched behind closed doors without debate or public input.

Aside from government's penchant for overestimating revenues, the whole contrivance is balanced on the Federal Highway Administration's okay on tolling I-80 and diverting a share of the revenues elsewhere. Are the feds willing to open that can of worms?

More astounding still, mass transit, for all its fiscal ineptitude and refusal to reform, is rewarded with an infusion of cash.

For whom the highway tolls? Isn't that painfully obvious? The legislature must put a stop to the pavers of this perfidy.

Travis J. Windle Communications Director

Office of Rep. John E.

Peterson Washington DC