The idea is to place the stations about 30 miles apart, allowing many short local trips to be completed with requiring a toll payment.

Locally, according to documents obtained by the Clarion News, there will be a toll booth in either of two locations, between Exit 42 Emlenton and Exit 45 St. Petersburg, or between Exit 56 Knox and Exit 60 Shippenville.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission will later choose between one of those two.

The announcement did not give any more specific location than between those two exits.

To the east, potential tolling locations include the area between Exit 86 Reynoldsville and Exit 90 DuBois Airport; between Exit 90 and Exit 97 DuBois; or between Exit 101 Penfield and Exit 111 Clearfield.

Local diversions

Of concern to communities along I-80 is an issue called “local diversion,” using routes paralleling I-80 to skip around the toll stations and avoid paying the fee.

This could increase car and heavy truck traffic and affect safety and congestion on roads such as Route 208 and U.S. Route 322.

Maps showing the toll station locations also indicate potential local diversion routes, including high-volume diversion route with increases in traffic of more than 1,000 vehicles per day.

Route 208 and Route 38 from Exit 42 through Emlenton Borough to Exit 45 is an expected route around potential toll station B-1, but maps did not show the expected volume. This route would involve steep hills with tight curves on either side of Emlenton.

A high-volume diversion route around potential toll station B-2 is shown from Exit 53 Knox along routes 338, 208, 322 and 66 to Exit 60 Shippenville.

In Jefferson County , a high volume diversion is shown from Exit 86 Reynoldsville along state routes 830 and 310, both rather hilly and winding to Exit 90 or through Falls Creek to Exit 97. Another diversion route would be along Route 322, with a number of options for leaving and rejoining I-80.

In fact, I-80 is closely paralleled by Route 208 from the Ohio line to Clarion County and by Route 322 from Clarion County through eastern Clearfield County .

Toll rates

Unlike old-school toll roads, there will not be a toll station at each exit, and therefore no way to know exactly how far a vehicle has traveled on the toll road.

So under the PTC’s plan, the toll really won’t be paid by the mile, but by how many tolling stations a vehicle passes through, PTC spokesman Carl DeFebo said. The toll stations will be roughly 30 miles apart.

The details have yet to be worked out, DeFebo said, but the PTC is considering a discount for local travelers who pass through only one toll station.

Of course, those using I-80 without passing through a toll station, going from Exit 62 Clarion to Exit 78 Brookville for example, would pay no toll at all.

The PTC plans to charge a rate of 8 cents per mile for passenger cars and light trucks and 30 cents a mile for commercial vehicles. This works out to about $25 in tolls to cross all of Pennsylvania on I-80 in a car, and about $93 in a commercial truck.

The rates will be the same as charged on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

The PTC plans to increase the toll rates by 3 percent per year. Under such a plan, the toll from a trip from Ohio to New Jersey in a passenger car would rise from $25 in the first year to $30 six years later.

Traveling between Barkeyville and Clarion using I-80, motorists would pass through one tolling station, and would pay a flat fee for passing through a single tolling point.

High-tech tolling

They likely won’t be toll booths. The TPC hopes to be able to use an “Open Road Tolling” system with no manned toll booths and no reason to slow down at all.

Vehicles will be able to pass through the tolling stations at highway speeds, and they will be billed using the E-Z Pass system, now in place on many toll roads. E-Z Pass involves a small device on each vehicle which sends a radio signal with the vehicle’s registration data to a receiver in the toll station

For those vehicles without E-Z Pass RFID device, a video camera will take a picture of the vehicle’s license plate. The system determines the name and address of the vehicle’s owner by accessing the database of vehicle registrations, and then sends a bill to the vehicle’s owner.

Some toll roads are using the license-plate camera system successfully, DeFebo said. Obscuring a license plate is illegal, so that State Police could cite motorists who try to beat the system in this way.

Without the camera system, toll stations would need extra lanes so vehicles could slow down and pass through toll booths with attendants or automatic currency acceptance systems.

This would require construction of plazas with extra lanes, as well as acquiring additional rights-of-way for the plazas, something the PTC wants to avoid, DeFebo said.

More planning

The PTC and its consultants plan to meet with local economic devilment agencies, county planning agencies and chambers of commerce to gather public input for further panning.

The tolling proposal must be approved by the Federal Highway Administration of the Department of Transportation, and last month the PTC submitted a revised phase one application to the FHWA.

Should the FHA approve the phase one application, a phase-two application must pass federal muster.

Construction of the tolling system on I-80 could start as early as 2010.