For passenger vehicles, the hike means an increase from $1.25 to $2 per toll plaza, while the cash rate for commercial trucks will jump from $4.25 to $6.75 per toll plaza.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- It's official: Tolls on the West Virginia Turnpike will increase 60 percent, starting Aug. 1.
Most drivers will see an increase from $1.25 to $2 per toll plaza. The rate for commercial trucks will jump from $4.25 to $6.75.
For drivers who use the E-Z Pass system, though, the increase will be much smaller -- just a nickel at each toll plaza, making the total charge $1.30. Commercial truckers can get a 20 percent discount if they use the state E-Z Pass, and a 13 percent discount using an E-Z Pass transponder from any other state.
Members of the state Parkways Authority unanimously approved the toll increases and the discounts on Wednesday. Several commissioners said they had no choice but to raise Turnpike tolls for the first time since 1981 -- faced with a continuing deterioration of the 88-mile highway and the prospect of letting more than $80 million in Turnpike bonds fall into default within the next year.
"I don't think there's a member of this board that wants to increase this, but we also recognize we have a fiduciary responsibility," said commissioner Cam Lewis. "We understand we have to put the Turnpike in a position so that in 10 years, we can turn it over to the Division of Highways."
Under state law, the Turnpike will transfer to Highways when the bonds are paid off in 2019, but the division can refuse to accept the 88-mile stretch of interstate if the road is not in good condition -- leaving it as a toll road indefinitely.
Parkways General Manager Greg Barr said the E-Z Pass transponders are available for an annual fee of $5 and a refundable $10 deposit. Tolls are billed to drivers' credit cards.
"Just a little over one round-trip to Princeton, and you've paid for your $5," Barr said.
Board members initially considered a $1.35 toll discount rate, but commissioner Bill Seaver, a Princeton resident, pushed for the additional nickel reduction.
"I think we owe it to the people in the south," he said.
Afterward, Seaver said the authority did the best it could for drivers in Southern West Virginia.
"The tolls on the Turnpike will never be palatable to people in Southern West Virginia," he said. "It's an unfair tax, and our people have to pay it."
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- It's official: Tolls on the West Virginia Turnpike will increase 60 percent, starting Aug. 1.
Most drivers will see an increase from $1.25 to $2 per toll plaza. The rate for commercial trucks will jump from $4.25 to $6.75.
For drivers who use the E-Z Pass system, though, the increase will be much smaller -- just a nickel at each toll plaza, making the total charge $1.30. Commercial truckers can get a 20 percent discount if they use the state E-Z Pass, and a 13 percent discount using an E-Z Pass transponder from any other state.
Members of the state Parkways Authority unanimously approved the toll increases and the discounts on Wednesday. Several commissioners said they had no choice but to raise Turnpike tolls for the first time since 1981 -- faced with a continuing deterioration of the 88-mile highway and the prospect of letting more than $80 million in Turnpike bonds fall into default within the next year.
"I don't think there's a member of this board that wants to increase this, but we also recognize we have a fiduciary responsibility," said commissioner Cam Lewis. "We understand we have to put the Turnpike in a position so that in 10 years, we can turn it over to the Division of Highways."
Under state law, the Turnpike will transfer to Highways when the bonds are paid off in 2019, but the division can refuse to accept the 88-mile stretch of interstate if the road is not in good condition -- leaving it as a toll road indefinitely.
Parkways General Manager Greg Barr said the E-Z Pass transponders are available for an annual fee of $5 and a refundable $10 deposit. Tolls are billed to drivers' credit cards.
"Just a little over one round-trip to Princeton, and you've paid for your $5," Barr said.
Board members initially considered a $1.35 toll discount rate, but commissioner Bill Seaver, a Princeton resident, pushed for the additional nickel reduction.
"I think we owe it to the people in the south," he said.
Afterward, Seaver said the authority did the best it could for drivers in Southern West Virginia.
"The tolls on the Turnpike will never be palatable to people in Southern West Virginia," he said. "It's an unfair tax, and our people have to pay it."
Critics, including Senate Minority Leader Don Caruth, R-Mercer, agreed with that sentiment.
Caruth said Southern West Virginia counties are not only at a competitive disadvantage with counties in more business-friendly Virginia, but with other West Virginia counties that are not burdened with Turnpike tolls.
"We in Southern West Virginia are being penalized terribly and, as a consequence, are treated as second-class citizens," he said Wednesday.
The increase, approved during a 2 1/2-hour session at the Charleston Civic Center, will raise an estimated $20 million a year. The discounts are expected to save Turnpike travelers $1.41 million a year.
Authority members voted to make up that difference by transferring a little more than $6 million from a Parkways economic development and tourism account to pay off the outstanding bonds owed on the Tamarack arts and crafts complex in Beckley. That will free up about $1.44 million a year in bond payments and interest earnings.
Rates for Turnpike commuter passes -- currently $25 per toll plaza per quarter, or $95 per barrier a year for unlimited use -- will remain unchanged.
During the meeting, authority members also addressed issues raised during public hearings in each of the Turnpike counties. Among them:
| That $10 million a year in federal highway funds credited to the mileage of interstates 64 and 77 on the Turnpike had been diverted to other Division of Highways projects.
Transportation Secretary Paul Mattox countered that when the Turnpike was upgraded to interstate status in the 1980s, $658 million of federal highway funds were directed to the Turnpike, at the detriment of other state road projects at the time.
Authority director Jim Pitrolo also noted that federal highway funds are not evenly distributed on a county-by-county basis, but are allocated to a priority list of projects.
| Contrary to popular opinion, no Turnpike toll revenue has ever been used to fund Tamarack, officials said. Tamarack bonds and operating expenses are paid from profits from food, fuel and other concessions sold at the Turnpike's service plazas.
@tag:Reach Phil Kabler at ph...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1220.
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Have to pay to enter West Virginia; have to pay to exit West Virginia.
My brother, an out-of-stater, commented one time that one could travel halfway around the world and pay no fees, but that luxury changes beyond the West Virginia lines.