PA Commonwealth Court Voids PennDOT’s Bridge Tolling Plan

HARRISBURG —Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court on Thursday permanently blocked PennDOT’s plan to toll nine bridges, including the I-95 Girard Point Bridge in Philadelphia.

The I-95 bridge is a 1-mile bridge over the Schuylkill River that provides the Philadelphia metropolitan area direct access to the Philadelphia International Airport and Navy Yard.

The tolling project, known as the Major Bridge P3 Initiative, is a novel plan to repair or replace nine bridges paid for placing tolls on the spans.

Three municipalities in western Pennsylvania, Bridgeville Borough, and Collier and South Fayette townships, petitioned the court to void the plan to toll Interstate 79 in Bridgeville because the plan did not provide alternative safe transportation on local roadways.

The court ruled PennDOT did not properly follow state law in getting the plan approved.

The 36-page opinion was written by Judge Ellen Ceisler, a former Philadelphia judge.

Ceisler concluded in the opinion that the impact on the municipalities effected by the bridge tolling plan were not addressed in enough detail.

In May, a Commonwealth Court issued a temporary halt to the project.

Subsequently, the court held hearings.

PennDOT has 30 days to appeal the ruling by the seven-member court to the state Supreme Court.

The panel agreed with the municipalities that PennDOT did not provide a full study on the impact of the construction of the bridge upgrades and tolls.

The public-private partnership delegated the decision to PennDOT without knowing all of the detail of each project and the impact on the municipalities, the opinion stated.

In November of 2020, PennDOT received approval for the project from the state’s Public-Private Partnership Board in November 2020.

PennDOT was working on a plan to provide funding through private partnership and collect $1 tolls.

The bridges there were under consideration are:

• I-95, Girard Point Bridge, Philadelphia
• I-78, Lenhartsville Bridge, Berks County
• I-79, Bridgeville Interchange Allegheny County
• I-80, Canoe Creek Bridges, Clarion County.
• I-80, Nescopeck Creek Bridge, Luzerne County.
• I-80, North Fork Bridge, Jefferson County.
• I-80, Lehigh River Bridge, Luzerne and Carbon counties.
• I-81, Susquehanna Project, Susquehanna County.
• I-83, South Bridge Project, Dauphin County.