Last month, Montgomery County officials unveiled a plan to place tolls on Route 422. These collections would help fund the much-talked-about extension of the R6 SEPTA line into the Pottstown and Royersford region.
Surprise! Drivers have a few questions about such a proposal.
Leo Bagely, assistant director of the Montgomery County Planning Commission, recently released answers to frequently-asked-questions from citizens’ surveys.
- Would everyone using 422 need an E-Z pass?
The general tolling recommendation assumes tolling without toll booths, using high-speed E-Z Pass tags, supplemented by license plate photography. In this region, high-speed E-Z Pass occurs in Plymouth Meeting between the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the Blue Route. In addition, the Atlantic City Expressway will be converted to high-speed E-Z Pass in 2011.
Without an E-Z Pass tag, a camera will snap a picture of your license plate and you would be billed for the toll.
- How would rates be determined?
Tolling will be based on the number of miles driven. For example, a driver on the 422 Expressway going from Douglassville to King of Prussia will pay the same per-mile rate in toll, but the toll will be larger than that of someone getting on at Trooper Road and exiting at Route 23.
- Why should drivers pay for a train?
Tolling revenue would first go to improvements along Route 422. Tolls are not exclusively intended for the rail extension.
PennDOT currently has in design two projects near Pottstown and Valley Forge but both require significantly more money than is currently available.
- Will tolls be enough to pay for passenger rail?
Preliminary indications from the R6 Service Extension Study showed that general tolling may be able to support some or all of the needed capital improvements to the US-422 Expressway and also some or all of the capital costs of extending rail service from Norristown to Wyomissing/Reading. This will be addressed in greater detail in the Detailed Feasibility Study.
- What about federal stimulus money?
While the initial round of funding has been allocated, there remains a possibility that additional funds could be made available for rail.
On Wednesday, PenTrans held its annual legislative breakfast in Harrisburg to discuss transit funding. Speakers included Sen. Robert Wonderling, R-Montgomery, and Toby L. Fauver, deputy secretary for local and area transportation.
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:47 am
The idea of tolling all of 422 is just a terrible one on so many levels, unless you want to dump excess traffic unto Ridge Pike, Germantown Pike, Route 23/724, and Black Rock Road every morning.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
I agree with 422 resident, it will make traffic on our smaller roads a headache.What about a wage tax on all workers in the towns of the 422 corrider. In addition I think the builders who are making millions off of housing developments near 422 should have to pay some sort of tax.Since they are the reason why we have traffic problems shouldn’t they have to pay for some of the road improvments.
June 21st, 2009 at 1:27 pm
One word: Ridiculous
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:28 am
Let me ask how 422 was payed for initially and why isnt that funding source able to pay for repairs and maintenance.
Also can we sell the multimillion dollar signs since they hardly ever work or get used.
Perhaps it’s time to move out of here and let the nutballs that go along with this pay the freight…
July 3rd, 2009 at 10:28 am
All, I can say to this is WOW. As if the school district doesn’t rape paychecks enough with a 13% increase this year, and a ridiculous occupational tax which no one seems to have any answers for and now this…. I can just sit back an laugh at it now.. I am waiting to hear on the news that one of my neighbors just went postal from all this taxing madness.
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:03 am
The finishing of 422 (it was a piecemeal project over 20 years time, IIRC) was paid for with allocated monies from a freeway project in Philadelphia that got shelved in the ’70’s due to NIMBYism (I think it was the I-895 Burlington-Bristol Freeway project, IIRC).
http://www.phillyroads.com/roads/US-422_PA/
July 22nd, 2009 at 9:03 am
Here we go again. 71 cents on every gallon of gas you buy is a TAX to pay for road repairs. The mis-management of money by our politicians is unbelievable. You people need to wake up and let these two bit political hacks know that we are not going to stand for this. It is NOT A TOLL it is a TAX!
July 24th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
I think its time to clean house in Harrisburg, both political parties and put people in who will work for the people of Pa. not against them.
September 2nd, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I do NOT want 422 to become a toll road. Hear that leaders!!! No tolls!!!
September 20th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Now each time I want to visit my grandchildren I will have to pay a toll just to go two exits unless I want to add to the already congested Ridge Pike/Main Street traffic. This is pretty sad for those of us who had to live through all the construction and now repairs and all the additional pollution and traffic to our once quite countryside. Surely we have pay for the price for progress on a daily basis. What about assessing a fee to all the builders who have made tons of money building all along the 422 Corridor?
October 29th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
A rail system???? Who the hell will use the rail system along 422? Norristown people? Reading people? They can go and buy a damn car like the rest of us.What a bunch of B.S.I’m sick and tired of hearing all this crap anymore. I’m done with it. Time to move to Alaska.
January 19th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Being a student I travel to Delaware County every day how can I possibly afford that on top of fuel costs. PennDOT and the county need to understand that the off-ramps and on ramps are all far to short, people dont get to the right or left when they need too. Also its the local townships allowing every housing developer to build with no zoning restrictions or requirements to expand roads. Its a snowball effect that has come to be realized. Then to even mention septa’s rail system along with 422 and the people who deal with it are they mad. No one wants to hear about septa anymore.