Pennsylvania continues to impress Overdrive’s Worst Road respondents with an improved I-80. Will tolls be the price to pay to finish the massive job?

A perennial Worst Road contender in Overdrive’s annual Highway Report Card survey is like the black sheep of the family who gets his act together only to stab you in the back. We’re talking about I-80 in Pennsylvania, improved but still struggling – and back in the spotlight, as the commonwealth attempts to toll the road as part of a federal pilot program for tolling existing interstates.

“Tolls on I-80 are a big problem,” says Ohio owner-operator Charles Harrell, leased to Greentree Transportation, who named I-80 in Pennsylvania as the nation’s most improved highway. “They’re improving it with our tax dollars and turning around and charging you again for the privilege.”

By lauding I-80 for several years now – ranking it second this year for Most Improved, for example – Overdrive readers seem to support the contention of toll opponents that the road doesn’t qualify for tolling under federal law because it’s not in bad enough shape.

Independent owner-operator Jon Phillips voted Pennsylvania’s I-80 the best road in the nation. “As far as traveling and rest stops, it is the best,” he says. Interstates elsewhere, such as West Virginia, have a scarcity of truck stops close to the exits, but I-80′s peppered with them, which makes the haul easier, he says.

But I-80 also tied this year for second worst, showing that however much progress has been made, there’s still a long way to go. And Pennsylvania is the all-time worst offender in the Overdrive survey, topping the Worst Roads category for 12 of the survey’s 17 years.