A recent article in Stateline examined the trend of states willing to turn over control and maintenance of state-owned roads to localities, some of which seem willing to take them as long as they are free to make modifications on speed limit and design, but also if they got the money along with it. State ownership of roadways varies, not surprisingly: 89% of the roads in West Virginia are state owned, and New Jersey owns 6% in its state. In Pennsylvania it is 33%.
While state roads ownership may not be devolving as of yet in Pennsylvania, the local role in transportation is changing. Allegheny County was given permission by the state to enact two new levies in 2007 to use as a dedicated local match for mass transit (taxes on alcohol and car rentals, which now go into the transit support fund, and the property taxes that used to match money for the Port Authority now stays in the general fund) and now the County, and all other counties in the state, have the ability to levy an additional $5 fee on top of the charge for state registration for automobiles to be used in the same manner as the liquid fuels funding is currently (in 2014 the $4.6 million in liquid fuels money from the state went to the County’s public works department). Based on the number of vehicle registrations and the $5 flat fee (which any county would have to vote to authorize, but would be collected by PENNDOT and remitted to the county) one estimate has put the money raised in the County at $4.7 million. The regular fee for the state registration of vehicles will increase in July of 2015.
