Turnpike CEO: More jobs, better access with turnpike/I-95 connector project
By: Anthony DiMattia
New jobs and better access to local businesses are some of the “significant benefits” that could come with the connection of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Interstate 95 in Bristol Township, officials said Thursday.
The $1.4 billion project could bring roughly 3,000 new jobs to the region and add new exit and entry points along the turnpike in Bucks and Montgomery counties, turnpike commission CEO Mark Compton said Thursday at a Lower Bucks County Chamber of Commerce meeting at the Sheraton Bucks County Hotel in Falls.
During peak construction, about a third of 500 projected construction jobs could open up in Bensalem, Bristol Township and Middletown, according to a study performed in 2000 by the Economic League of Greater Philadelphia. The project could increase business sales in the region by $630 million, with nearly two-thirds of that total staying in Bucks, the study noted.
While figures will likely remain positive, an updated study will be conducted soon to collect new data, said turnpike commission spokesman Carl DeFebo. The "critical element" for the Pennsylvania Turnpike/I-95 interchange will start Jan. 3 with the opening of the state's first toll-by-plate interchange to replace the existing Delaware River Toll Plaza in Bristol Township.
E-ZPass customers with passenger vehicles will be charged $5 entering Pennsylvania and those without E-ZPass will have their license plates read by high-speed cameras and be billed $6.75 by mail.
No fee will be charged for eastbound crossings into New Jersey — to be consistent with other bridges crossing the Delaware, officials added.
The cashless toll will be the first of two pilot projects on the turnpike's 550-mile system, and if all goes well, others could be added in Bucks and Montgomery County, Compton said. New access points could be financially viable because new cashless tolls cost about $40 million less than standard toll plazas, he added.
While no specific details were available in Bucks, Montgomery has requested seven new cashless tolls along the turnpike and Northeast Extension in Conshohocken, Plymouth, Upper Dublin, Upper Merion, Upper Providence and at the border of Limerick and Lower Pottsgrove, officials said.
“In order for us to (create access) we have to find a cost-effective way to do so (and) by having high- speed gantries on the mainline we no longer have to put the tolling apparatus at the point of access," he said.
Along with cashless tolls, other major changes will take effect next month on the turnpike.
Once the new Neshaminy Falls toll plaza opens Jan. 3 in Bensalem, it will be the first toll in Pennsylvania on the mileage-based turnpike for drivers headed west and the last for those headed east. Drivers will be able to get off the turnpike in Bristol Township and not pay another toll after the bridge. That's because tolls will no longer be charged at the exit off Route 13 starting sometime next year. Drivers also will be able to enter the turnpike there and not pay a toll until they either reach the bridge going east or the Neshaminy Falls interchange at Galloway and Richlieu roads while headed west.
The Route 13 interchange will be the only toll-free access point during the pilot program, turnpike officials said.
Drivers traveling westbound from New Jersey will continue to pay their tolls at the last exit of the New Jersey Turnpike before crossing through the cashless toll at the bridge, officials said.
The massive highway project will transform portions of Lower Bucks, with the first phase expected to be finished in 2018. Under the plan, sections of the turnpike east of Levittown will be re-designated as I-95. Areas of I-95 in Bristol Township and Middletown will be renamed I-395.
“What this will do to the Route 13 corridor once this is constructed in 2018, I think, is really going to be revolutionary,” Compton said. "When this transpires, I think it will be very significant for the region."