Back to the rear of the bus please

Thats were Rendell keeps the money....



Any new revenue-generating proposal will be the third attempt to provide funding for the transportation system, legislators said Wednesday.

Plan A was the proposal to sell or lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike, an effort defeated by the state legislators, while Plan B was I-80 tolling.

One area in need of assessment is the money spent on mass transit in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, said state Rep. Carl Metzger, R-Berlin.

“We need to reassess why such a significant amount of our transportation money is going to subsidize empty buses,” he said. “That’s where we’re hemorrhaging money.”

acesover wrote:Plan A was the proposal to sell or lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike, an effort defeated by the state legislators, while Plan B was I-80 tolling.

The Turnpike hands over 2 or 3 billion each year to the State, not only does it maintain itself but it's a money maker. That's why the tolls are so high.

In MA, it's common knowledge that the tolls were only supposed to run until the debt for the turnpike (90) was paid off. That was over 30 years ago. Now it's become another MA cash-cow & bureaucracy, with friends of politicians making a minimum of $80K/year sitting on their asses & being rude to customers.

Don`t expect the tolls to ever come off Smitty, once a tax or toll if you will always a tax. Pa. was the first turnpike & still has tolls, heck part of our gas tax is to help Johnstown recover from the flood way back then. Taxes never go away. Pa. does not have a city that can compare in size to most larger cities in the country but yet at least a few years ago (not sure about now) our transit workers were like second or third highest paid in the nation.

I always wonder how road repairs are coordinated. In NJ you'll see a mile of orange traffic cones set up, blocking nothing when no work is going on.
I heard the Autobahn in Germany is 30" thick. If there's a ding in it they come in and replace a whole section. I travelled the Parkway a lot last couple of years, there's sections I called "the moguls", there's a bridge expansion joint in a particular place where my Ranger almost jumps off the road, always tried to get ready for that.
It's interesting to look up at bridges and see the literal crumbling of the infrastructure.

I can almost see you prepping for the expansion joint--- ----

Dann757 wrote:I always wonder how road repairs are coordinated. In NJ you'll see a mile of orange traffic cones set up, blocking nothing when no work is going on.
I heard the Autobahn in Germany is 30" thick. If there's a ding in it they come in and replace a whole section. I travelled the Parkway a lot last couple of years, there's sections I called "the moguls", there's a bridge expansion joint in a particular place where my Ranger almost jumps off the road, always tried to get ready for that.
It's interesting to look up at bridges and see the literal crumbling of the infrastructure.

Dann757 wrote:I always wonder how road repairs are coordinated. In NJ you'll see a mile of orange traffic cones set up, blocking nothing when no work is going on.
I heard the Autobahn in Germany is 30" thick. If there's a ding in it they come in and replace a whole section.

The PA Turnpike was built just after the autobahn and you won't find any "moguls" there either. I'm not sure how thick it is but its substantially thicker than a new road. It's probably the flattest and straightest piece of real estate in the country considering the terrain it traverses. Typically the highways built from the 60's to the present will try and follow the contour of the land to some degree, this is actually a safety measure because one complaint about the Turnpike is the long straightaways that cause driver fatigue. For the Turnpike the goal was to keep it flat and straight. I'm going from memory but I think the largest grade is 3%, they moved a lot of materiel to make that road. Another feature includes banked corners, with a fresh coat of blacktop there is only about one place I can think of between here and Philly besides the tunnels I wouldn't be comfortable traveling 100+. I've actually been on that road at times and find myself creeping over 90 and didn't even realize it.

It's always been well maintained IMO but I know some will disagree. I think a lot of people fear it because the shoulder on the left is only a few feet for almost it's entire length and shoulders on the right aren't much more. You do not want to get a flat on that road. Seems people are more liberal with the gas on that road which I'm sure also leads to many being real uncomfortable driving it.

From your discription of the Pa. turnpike my guess is most of your driving experience on it has been in the Eastern part of the state. Its getting better but the Western part still leaves a lot to be desired.

samhill wrote: my guess is most of your driving experience on it has been in the Eastern part of the state.

Yes, I only traveled the East/West section once about 15 years ago. The Northeast extension I've traveled since I was a kid, wasn't completed until around 1960 long after the original sections.

The PA TP tolls give motorist the right to drive as fast as they want, doesn't it? I-476 is most dangerous at rush hour between Quakertown & Delaware Valley, IMO. I've always called it the worse toll road in America as I got stuck in construction traffic on so many occassions and on some occasions forced off of the road at some obsecure interchange without prior warning.

But until I drove Queens, NY last week. Now that was bad. I spent $19.50 in tolls from the GW Bridge to Queens and north toward CT, Brutal!

I took 80w to 380 to 81N to go to the Binghamton area. Lots of hills, my little weak Ford Ranger makes me downshift to fourth constantly. I'd like to travel the PA turnpike some day and check it out.

One time coming back I spaced out and missed 380, ended up going 81S all the way to 78E, quite a detour but a nice ride anyway. First time I ever saw the Wilkes Barre area.

Coming back from Easter I missed 287S off 80E, couldn't believe it. Took me another 1/2 hr. to turn around.

To go with what Richard is saying about the Pa. TPK being fairly flat and very straight, It has always been told to me that the east/west Pa. TPK was built on a existing railroad bed and that seems to make sense to me... Also, I'm not positive, but I think if you go to the Pa. TPK website their is a story that tells of the railroad bed and how the roadway was built, etc...

Also, the Pa. TPK is a privately owned and operated roadway, some don't know that. It is not owned by the state of Pennsylvania... Oh, and the toll collectors get paid WAYYYY tooo much money to stand there and do virtually nothing... I worked on the turnpike for some time as a authorized turnpike service provider and got to know a few things about a few of these people... I live very near the highest traffic volume area of the Pike, the junction as its known, where 276 and 476 meet just NW of Philadelphia, the toll takers union there makes sure to pad the pockets of the takers here, quite nice I might add... Lazy chumps!!!

Murdoc

As someone who has traveled both the turnpike and Rt. 80 from end to end more times than I can count, I will say that Rt.80 although hillier the road surface is wider and the turns are much less severe. Many parts of the Turnpike are strait as an arrow such as the 26 mile run between Carlisle and the first tunnels. or Carlisle and Harrisburg west. When you Get into the mountains, the turns are very sharp. Especially near Bedford and Irwin. All you need to do is look at the gouges in the road bed to see where trucks have turned over. Back to Rt.80. Does anyone remember when they raised gas and diesel taxes back in the 90's? They were specifically meant for repairing the highways. I don't know about you but I can remember how bad Rt. 80 was. For several years in a row, Rt. 80 had the honor of being the worst road in the nation. Mack trucks used to use Rt.80 as their test track and put it in their advertising. They raised the tax, fixed the roads now they want more money? well they can go pound sand as far as I am concerned.

It was started in 1937

http://www.paturnpike.com/geninfo/history/history.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Turnpike

Autobahn 1931

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn