Those who continue to drive will be fully responsible for debt payments
By Eric Boehm | PA Independent
HARRISBURG — A proposed transportation project to improve a key commuter route in suburban Philadelphia and move some drivers off the road with mass transit will require drivers to shoulder the entire $750-million price tag.
The project would be financed by bonds that would be repaid with revenue from new tolls on U.S. Route 422, according to a preliminary plan by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, or DVRPC.
"Train riders obviously pay the fare that goes to operate the train,” said Barry Seymour, executive director of the DVRPC, a metropolitan planning organization that operates across five counties in Pennsylvania and four counties in New Jersey.
But train fares on the proposed Norristown-to-Reading commuter line will not repay the up-front cost of the project, Seymour said.
The restoration of train service, defunct along that line since 1981, will require $370 million in capital spending, to be repaid entirely by tolls. Tolling revenue will also pay for bonds on about $500 million in capital improvements to the Route 422 roadway.
The Route 422 corridor tracks northwest from the edge of Philadelphia through formerly rural regions of Chester, Montgomery and Berks counties. The area is generally made up of relatively new upper middle-income suburban residents surrounding older working-class communities along the Schuylkill River.
Public sentiment is strongly in opposition to the tolling plan, and some opponents have accused the DVRPC of inflating the numbers of potential train riders to make the plan more appealing. The commission has refused to disclose studies used to back up their plan.
State Rep. Tom Quigley, R-Montgomery, said he and most of his constituents oppose the tolling plan.
“It’s almost like you’re asking people to pay more at the worst possible time,” Quigley said. “People look at it and say, ‘Why should this small stretch of commuter highway get tolled and nothing else?’”
Logistics of the plan
The DVRPC’s plan calls for four tolls at Valley Forge, Collegeville, Limerick and the Berks County line, although Seymour said entry and exit ramps could have tolls, as is the case on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The tolling would be done electronically to prevent lengthy backups at toll booths.
Tolls would be set at 11-cent per mile, which equals $2.65 for the entire trip from Reading to Norristown. That totals about $675 for a commuter who drives the whole distance every weekday for an entire year, under the plan.
Seymour said about 10 percent of drivers would travel the entire length of the road, according to the DVRPC’s studies.
The commuter rail line would run parallel to the highway with seven stations extending service from Norristown along existing Norfolk Southern freight lines through Montgomery, Chester and Berks counties.
Those stations would be in Valley Forge, Phoenixville, Royersford, Pottstown, Monocacy, Reading and Wyomissing, according to the plan.
The cost of a rail ticket would be in line with prices on other SEPTA regional rail lines, Seymour said. The highest fare on SEPTA is $8.75, or $10 if purchased on the train. From Pottstown to Norristown would cost $5.25 in the DVRPC plan.
Numbers in dispute
Seymour said the plan expects 3,400 daily riders on the train line, an average of about 500 per station.
Some 110,000 cars per day cross the Schuylkill River Bridge at the eastern end of Route 422 near King of Prussia.
John Frey, a member of the Pennsylvania Transit Expansion Coalition, which opposes the Route 422 plan, said DVRPC’s projected numbers are greatly inflated, since SEPTA’s busiest stations rarely average more than 500 passengers per day.
“Unfortunately, we can’t confirm (the projected numbers) because we asked for some supporting information in the form of right-to-know requests and those requests were turned down” by the DVRPC, Frey said.
The coalition has appealed that decision successfully to the state Office of Open Records, but has yet to receive the information from the DVRPC, he said.
Seymour said the numbers were accurate and declined to discuss the legal challenges brought by Frey’s group.
According to the DVRPC report, only 25 percent of the commuter traffic on Route 422 continues south into Philadelphia, while 25 percent diverts toward King of Prussia and the other 50 percent exits to travel east or west on Route 202 toward West Chester or other parts of Montgomery County.
Those numbers left Quigley wondering how many people would really use the train line — intended to ease commutes to the city.
“When you actually whittle it down, it looks like a much lower number of people will actually use the train,” he said.
Quigley said he received 20 emails and at least as many phone calls in opposition to the plan earlier this week.
Control over toll revenue
Dave Devlin, a resident of Montgomery County who frequently uses Route 422, said he would favor tolling if the highway improvements and rail line would help the area attract jobs and businesses. However, there are concerns.
“One thing that many residents are leery of is how the government … is going to guarantee that the money goes to what they say it is going to,” Devlin said. “You’re always going to have a skeptical view from residents in this area that the toll money is going to something else.”
The DVRPC presented their initial plan to Gov. Tom Corbett’s Transportation Funding Advisory Commission earlier this year. In July, the commission gave Corbett an outline for how to raise $2.7 billion in additional transportation-specific annual revenue, but did not include tolling of state or interstate highways in its formal proposal.
However, the commission asked the General Assembly to pass enabling language that allows for tolls to be placed on state roads and operated by a local tolling authority run by the three counties that contain the Route 422 corridor.
Secretary of Transportation Barry Schoch has stressed the importance of local control for any new toll roads, suggesting the creation of local tolling authorities to keep any toll revenue as a local supplement for state and federal transportation dollars.
Some local officials, including Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel, a Democrat, support the plan. However, hundreds of local residents voiced their opposition to the plan at a public forum Tuesday in Montgomery County, according to local newspaper reports.
This story has been updated: The toll revenue will pay for $500 million in capital improvements to Route 422. Another $370 million in capital payments will go towards the rail line.
