Like clockwork, come Sunday, tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike will go up another 5%. This will be the 15th consecutive year that tolls will have increased. As maddening as this is, there is no relief in sight.

If nothing changes, the Turnpike Commission will continue to raise rates. Based on current projections, rates will go up 5% annually through 2025, 4% in 2026, 3.5% in 2027 and then 3% a year from 2028 until 2050.

I figure that those who want to ride the toll road at midcentury will probably have to refinance their homes.

In its news release, the Turnpike Commission makes the increase seem benign by its example that the most common toll for a passenger vehicle will increase from $1.70 to $1.80 for E-ZPass holders and from $4.10 to $4.40 for toll-by-plate motorists. (Toll-by-plate means that a photo is taken of a vehicle’s license plate, then a bill is sent to that address for payment. The big problem is that way too many of those billed do not pay the fee, further exacerbating the financial plight of the turnpike).

A dime increase seems trivial, but if you are going a longer distance, the difference adds up. For example, starting Sunday, a one-way trip from the Mahoning Valley interchange to the Mid-County interchange will cost $7.20. This means that if you want to see an Eagles, 76ers or Flyers game, already a pricey proposition, you have to factor in nearly $15 for tolls. In addition if you’re going to Lincoln Financial Field to see the Eagles, you have to buy tickets, gas, spend a minimum of $40 on parking and $12 for two hot dogs (no drinks).

A commuter from Franklin Township in Carbon County who uses the turnpike to get to a job in the Allentown area would pay roughly $12 a day ($60 a week) round-trip by 2050 to use the toll road.

You don’t have to be a genius to conclude that the expected annual toll hikes for turnpike users is not sustainable. This message was delivered loud and clear by former state’s Auditor General Eugene DePasquale when the results of a 2021 audit were announced.

DePasquale’s office released a pointed warning that if the Turnpike Commission makes good on its threat to raise tolls annually for the next 27 years, as it said it would have to do to remain on a sound fiscal footing, it will destabilize the turnpike system, putting the nation’s first toll road in financial jeopardy.

DePasquale says we are already seeing signs of the problems arising with ever-rising tolls. He said an alarming number of motorists just don’t pay the tolls and ignore efforts to try to enforce payment.

At the heart of the commission’s woes is a hastily enacted 2007 state law that requires the turnpike to make significant payments to the state Department of Transportation to finance other types of transportation projects and services.

Why such a law came into effect is a matter of speculation, because it would seem reasonable that turnpike tolls should be used to handle turnpike expenses exclusively and that PennDOT funding would be handled from a separate pot of money.

Starting in 2008, turnpike tolls until recently had increased well above the annual inflation rate every year. To keep up with its PennDOT obligations, the commission has had to go into debt. The turnpike simply cannot continue to raise tolls to cover the legally mandated payments to PennDOT, because hiking tolls year after year while hoping that E-ZPass users won’t notice is not a sustainable revenue plan, and it causes a financial hardship for motorists.

The inevitability is that motorists will seek alternative, no-toll routes, and more and more motorists who do not have E-ZPass will continue to stiff the commission in its efforts to get these motorists to pay their bills.

The logical conclusion is that the state will plunge into a major financial crisis and the oldest toll road in the nation - constructed in 1940 - will be in a heck of a fix.

By Bruce Frassinelli?|?tneditor@tnonline.com