State Audit Echoes Concerns About Pennsylvania Turnpike Finances

Ed Blazina reports on the messy battle over the financing of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, specifically the $450 million-a-year payment the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission makes for public transportation.

Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale recently released an audit of the turnpike's finances while expressing support for a proposal by the commission to eliminate its PennDOT payment.

Mr. DePasquale said he supported the turnpike commission’s call for relief from the annual payments to the state Department of Transportation, which by law must use the money for transit subsidies. He said the commission is relying on inflated turnpike traffic numbers in estimating future revenues, and that won’t be sustainable if the agency keeps raising tolls to cover debt payments for money borrowed to pay PennDOT.

The report does not include, however, a plan for how public transit would replace that funding source. "Without funding from another source, either the turnpike or public transit agencies that receive an average of more than half of their funds from the state face serious financial hardship," writes Blazina to paraphrase the explanation offered by DePasquale. The article goes into a lot more detail about the finances of the turnpike and the public transit agencies that rely on funding from the state.