Keystone no-toll party

Today is Constitution Day, the 221st anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution, which happened in the great state of Pennsylvania, home to one of the oldest tolled roads in the nation, the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Penn’s also home to perhaps the most controversial toll-road proposal of the century (outside of the as-yet-not-built Trans-Texas Corridor system, but that’s another story). Last week, the feds finally came down with a denial of the state’s application for federal funds to toll I-80 as part of a federal pilot program for tolling existing interstates in need of redevelopment. It was the final decision in a process that went on for years, as the cash-strapped Keystone State’s DOT and Turnpike Authority, in concert with the legislature, sought ways to fully fund reconstruction of the state’s roads and bridges and still keep up obligations to the larger cities’ mass-transit system.