DVRPC Exeutive Director Barry Seymour spoke Wednesday to Pottstown area planners
POTTSTOWN PA – If U.S. Route 422 ever becomes a toll road – and regional planners agree, currently that’s a big “if” – local commuters, those traveling within just one or two interchanges on the limited-access highway, may not be required to pay a fee for that privilege.
One of the most-often cited complaints about the prospect of tolling 422, a proposal being explored by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), is that area residents would have to dole out a couple of quarters or more to drive just a few miles from their homes to reach area shopping centers or other routine locations.
Right now they make that trip over 422 for free. They still might, even if tolls are imposed, DVRPC Executive Director Barry Seymour told the Pottstown Metropolitan Regional Planning Committee last week (June 22, 2011) during its monthly meeting at Pottstown Borough Hall.
Tolling 422 continues to appear to be the best way to create a large, locally controlled fund to significantly improve the transportation corridor between King of Prussia and Reading PA, Seymour explained, despite the fact that both area residents and state legislators criticize the idea. “There was a lot of heat shed on the project” last week, as a result of a lawmakers’ press conference, “but not a lot of light,” he said.
Depending on where gantries are erected to electronically collect tolls (there probably would be three such towers, Seymour said), it would be possible for motorists to enter 422 at an interchange beyond one gantry, exit before the next collection point, and never be charged a fee.
Of course, the exact placement of the collection points themselves, like almost everything else related to the tolling proposal, is likely to also be contentious. West Pottsgrove representatives on the committee made that clear in discussion following Seymour’s presentation.
“If there are other ways to do this,” gathering enough money that does not rely on increasingly scarce state or federal financing to help relieve morning and evening commuter congestion on 422, “it’s still very much a wide open discussion,” Seymour acknowledged. “We’re looking for your suggestions.”
Those who believe, however, that declining gas taxes or PennDOT funding should be enough to accomplish the $750 million work DVRPC expects will be needed to fix 422 for the foreseeable future, are only kidding themselves, he added.
Related (to U.S. Route 422 Corridor planning):
- Even With Tolling, 422 Might Be Free (For A Few Miles)
- County Candidates Brown, Castor Oppose 422 Tolling
- Quigley, Other Reps Questioning 422 Tolls Proposal
- 422 Toll Proposal Wins Some PA Commission Backers
- Exec Highway Group To Hear Rt. 422 Tolling As ‘Model’
- 422 Questions Answered, For Your Viewing Pleasure
- In 422 Tolling, Planners Say, Studying Doesn’t Make It So
- Former Reporter Asks Commissioners To Support 422 Tolls
- Online Survey Seeks Opinions On Local Road Congestion
- 422 Plus Project Plays Offense With FAQs Debut
- Peering Into The Future? Gov’s Bridge Proposal And 422
- Another Township Endorses 422 Master Plan
- Neighboring Limerick Supervisors Endorse 422 Master Plan
- Understand 422 Plan Endorsement, Lower Pottsgrove Advised
- Lower Pottsgrove Holds On 422 Plan Endorsement
- Engineers Claim PA Roads Worse Now Than In 2006
- Tuesday Session Tackles Funding For 422 And Elsewhere
- Tolls, Lower Pottsgrove Station Part Of 422 Plan
- Pending Decision May Affect Route 422 Projects
- Last Day For Your Say On Route 422 Plan
- Notebook Worthy (Aug. 24, 2009)
- Consultants Express Interest In Studying 422
- Don’t Like 422 Tolling? Website Wants Your Alternative
- Truckers Alerted On Highway Partnerships Bill
- In 422 Debate, Time A Hindrance And Help
- Notebook Worthy (June 29, 2009)
- Growth, Planners Say, Is 422’s Growing Problem
- Tech Used To Draw For 422 Meetings
- Route 422 Toll Meetings Next Week
- 422 Repairs, Delays Start Tuesday
- 422 Proposal, Like Traffic, Creeps Ahead
- Got A Route 422 Idea? Time To Air It
- Train Service On The Front Burner Once More
Free?
We don’t make that trip for free. We pay taxes on our fuel, we pay fees on our registrations of vehicles, we pay state taxes …
Where do they get off saying we drive for free? 422 is not free any more than any other roadway in the state.
Do not forget we already paid for this road and continue to pay for its maintenance and upkeep. Don’t let these people fool you; there’s no reason to toll this road any more or sooner than tolling Route 309, Route 202, Route 1, the Blue Route, the Schuykill Expressway, or any other major arterial in the Philadelphia metro area. Lets’ get the focus onto the inadequacy of PennDOT and the DVRPC for general failures in planning.
Who paid for the major rehab and rework of the 202 and 422 interchange? We did. Why isn’t the northbound 202 traffic subject to tolling?
I’m tired of being the focus of the DVRPC. Why have they spent over a half-million dollars on this campaign to toll our highway?
I remain opposed to tolling now and in the future.
Now if you want to talk about putting in a high speed monorail in the center of 422 from Reading to KOP and Norristown let’s talk. Something akin to the Disney World monorail …
“Free yea right”
So tell us what is Free ? A very bad word choice.
Nothing in PA is free the last time I checked. Who is going to
fix all the local roads from the over run of people
trying to avoid toll roads ? I know myself I will be one of them in a long line all the way to Devon on back roads every day, it will take me a extra 20min to 30min but it will save me over a $1000.00 dollars a year. which I can use toward school taxes that are out of control. The DVRPC better wake up have any of them spent anytime in lines on side roads when 422 is down for a traffic issue its mass grid lock. Why keep wasting the Tax payers money doing studys? I know smart people with PHDs telling the DVRPC what will work.
“PHD” Pile Higher Deeper
The reason that they can fix 202 without tolls and not 422 is because this isn’t about the road repairs at all. This is about supporting a commuter train that will lose 12 million dollars a year and cost 500 million to build. 16 million annually in operating expenses and 4 million a year in estimated ticket revenue. These are the numbers in the DVRPC’s own presentation.
I also question the 750 million in repairs needed. If the train will initially cost 500 million to put together and the road repairs will cost 750 million, then why is the bond that they are taking out only 1.1 billion. Wouldn’t that be 1.25 billion. Plus, if you can get on and off of 422 without paying, aren’t people just going to use their GPS to get around the booths?
Yes, Carl, there is talk about and interest in extending commuter train service west from Norristown to Reading. But the train portion is NOT set in stone, and actually is a separate component of the current discussion. We’re working on a story about this that likely will be published on or before Friday.
I have not seen or heard any discussion of a bond amount. It’s speculative anyway. The discussion has not progressed anywhere near the sale of bonds, nor is it likely to for several years yet. If the numbers don’t add up, I’m not surprised; it’s all in a state of flux, due in part to the variable cost of financing.
Toll points would be positioned between interchanges. If you wanted to circumvent the tolls, you’d have to get off 422 at an interchange before a toll point, drive secondary roads to an interchange after a toll point, and then repeat the same process to avoid the next toll. As a practical matter, only those with too much time on their hands are likely to do that.
The discussion of “free” commuter travel refers to interchanges over short distances between toll points. For example, if one toll point is set between Grosstown Road and Route 100, and a second toll point between Evergreen and Lewis Roads, then as I understand it your travel between getting on 422 at the Route 100 interchange and getting off at the Sanatoga interchange (a distance of about 5 miles and 4 interchanges) would not be tolled.
A good comment, Carl. Thanks for taking time to make it, and for reading The Post.