The tolls drivers pay to Pennsylvania Turnpike are also repaying the loans of the state’s past spending on public transportation and state highways and bridges that are not related to America’s First Superhighway, writes Thomas Fitzgerald for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

In the last 16 years, the Turnpike Commission has given $8 billion to Pennsylvania Department of Transportation while accumulating interest on the bonds it sold to finance that obligation – in addition to the other debt it has assumed for construction required to maintain and improve the toll road.

“Customers are really on the hook for almost $16 billion to eventually pay all that back,” said Turnpike chief financial officer Richard Dreher.

The repayment, which is the result of Gov. Ed Rendell’s Act 44 passed in 2007, will require continued annual toll increases, with the last one scheduled for 2051.

Now, with public transit in financial distress and a need for repairs on locally owned roads and bridges rising, state government leaders are looking for a new stable source of funding. But this time, the turnpike is maxed out.

To help find a solution, transit funding will be the subject of a state Senate Transportation Committee hearing on Tuesday.

Read more about the Pennsylvania Turnpike in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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