Governor Rendell, devoting a significant portion of his annual budget address to the highway and mass transit funding crisis, has proposed leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike and invoking a new tax on oil company profits to close the $1.7 billion gap in transportation funding in Pennsylvania.

The governor predicted that leasing the turnpike to a private operator would raise $965 million annually to repair existing highways and bridges, and a 6.17 percent tax on oil company profits in Pennsylvania would raise $760 million for mass transit.

The $965 million figure is predicated on the Turnpike lease bringing between $10 billion and $12 billion as an up-front payment to be placed in a trust fund, and it assumes that the rate of return on that trust would be 9 percent.

The Transportation Construction Industries coalition issued a statement thanking the governor for proposing a solution to the funding crisis. However, TCI pointed out that while the $965 million funding level would eventually fix the existing roads and bridges, it would not enable the state to increase the capacity and ease the congestion on Pennsylvania’s highway system.

Additionally, it’s impossible to know what a Turnpike lease deal will actually bring until a deal is on the table. The General Assembly and the governor must first enact legislation that would enable such a deal to be made before a funding level can be verified.

PHIA is gearing up to provide information to the news media and the public in the coming months as these issues are discussed, and E-motion will be an important source of that information.