The head of Western Pennsylvania's top highway planning agency Thursday backed a state recommendation to increase the gasoline tax by 11.5 cents.
Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission Chairman J. Bracken Burns endorsed the hefty gas tax increase recommended by Gov. Ed Rendell's Transportation Funding and Reform Commission.
"If we have the worst problem in America, we should pay the most money to make that problem go away," Burns said.
He was one of five panelists who gathered yesterday at the Omni William Penn Hotel, Downtown, to tackle the commission's controversial recommendations. Rendell formed the commission in February 2005. The group Monday proposed raising the gas tax by 11.5 cents to generate about $900 million for highway and bridge projects, the realty transfer tax by almost 1 percent and driver registration and license fees by an average of about $15 a vehicle.
Burns urged state lawmakers to resolve transportation problems.
"Shame on the Legislature if they don't step up to the plate and meet the problems of the commonwealth," he said.
Panelist Jim Roddey, the former Allegheny County chief executive and a member of the governor's commission, said the commission's key recommendations are unlikely to become reality.
"I think it's going to be extremely difficult for the Legislature in a short period of time to step up and increase taxes in Pennsylvania by $1.7 billion," he said.
Roddey also said the chances of Allegheny County and other local governing bodies raising taxes to generate money for transit are almost nil.
"It will be almost impossible for local officials, like mayors, to say, 'We're going to increase local taxes to get a part of the new money,' " he said.
Veering off topic, Roddey said the Port Authority of Allegheny County should abandon its $435 million North Shore Connector T extension, for which construction is about to begin.
"I would ask the Port Authority board to take another serious look to see if this is the right time to build a tunnel to the North Side," he said.
Port Authority CEO Steve Bland said millions of dollars -- mostly federal -- already have been spent. The federal government might not trust giving money to the authority again if work is halted now, he said.
"It's a decent project with a very bad case of timing," Bland said.
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