PRINCETON — West Virginia Turnpike tolls are either an economic boon or a devastating burden to businesses and individuals alike.

Though the viewpoints differ greatly, all sides agree that southern West Virginia legislators must act soon to either insure that the tolls be maintained in the region the road serves or eliminated altogether by 2019, when the bonds on the interstate are paid in full.

“Our guys better jump on this thing now, and I’m talking about every county that is associated with the turnpike,” Princeton businessman and Parkways Authority Board Member Bill Seaver said this week, “When these bonds are paid off, those monies should be spent on southern West Virginia projects.”

Seaver set off a firestorm of discussion last Thursday, when he declared during a Parkways Authority meeting that removing the tolls would be a horrible tragedy and that the Authority should roll out a marketing campaign to help citizens and lawmakers see his point of view.

“If our leaders — our legislators — would start now, they’ve got seven years until the [Parkways Authority] ends,” Seaver said. “If we don’t do something to protect those funds in the future, the state and the department of transportation are going to take that money from those tolls and spend it everywhere but here.”

Currently, motorists traveling from Mercer County to Charleston and back pay $2 at each toll plaza, if they pay cash. Motorists with an EZ Pass transponder can pass through on a $1.30 toll at each plaza, after they pay a $5 fee for the transponder and deposit some money into a Parkways Authority account. EZ Pay plans are also available for commercial vehicles at discounted rates.

These fees bring in an estimated $80 million a year, to operate and maintain the 88 miles of the West Virginia Turnpike, including its 415 lane miles, 116 bridges, three travel plazas, four toll barriers and offices, salt storage buildings, administrative offices, three State Police offices, one welcome center and the Courtesy Patrol.

Although Tamarack was once funded with toll funds, the exhibition place for artists is now funded through concession sales at the travel plazas along the Turnpike.

While motorists in counties adjoining the Turnpike have long paid the burden to have the road built, Seaver believes they paved the way for many other economic opportunities in the region.

“We’ve got stuff here we would’ve never had if it hadn’t been for the Turnpike,” he said, referring specifically to The Summit Bechtel Family Scout Reserve, Hatfield-McCoy Trail and  the expansion of the whitewater rafting and skiing industries in southern West Virginia.

While he’s quick to agree that it isn’t fair that southern West Virginia residents must pay $7.80-$12 to travel a modern road to reach our state capital, Seaver said it’s more important to insure that the road is safe, up to date and supporting the counties that sustained it throughout it’s lifetime.

“It was an unfair tax to start with, but we’ve paid it. I want it, and I want to make sure we reap the rewards of what we’ve paid,” Seaver said.

His vision would require legislative action making it law that when the bonds are paid off, whatever toll revenue is collected would be used to maintain and operate the Turnpike properly; then, whatever funds remain at that point, would be allocated to a special southern West Virginia fund to benefit development projects, primarily in the counties adjoin the Turnpike.

“The people at the Department of Transportation are going to start licking their lips, because they want that money, and we need to work now to make sure they don’t get it,” Seaver said. “If they do, talk about being neglected, then, we’ll really be neglected, because they’ll decide how our money gets spent.”

In 1989, when the West Virginia Parkways Authority was established, the state struck a deal similar to the one Seaver advocates. At that time, the Authority took out $83 million in bonds to repay the state the money it used to build the Turnpike. That $83 million was then used to fund infrastructure projects throughout southern West Virginia.

This is how it broke down, according to documentation Seaver offered:

• Southern West Virginia road projects received $25.10 million;

• Beckley Sophia Road got $3.12 million;

• Summersville Lake Bridge used $17.58 million;

• Mt. Nebo-Summersville Lake Road consumed $9.22 million;

• Chelyan Bridge received $10.21 million;

• Summersville Lake/Irish Corners was allocated $9.76 million;

• Route 41 North to Nicholas County High School got approximately $7.1 million;

• Southern West Virginia Tourism Center received almost $3.5 million.

“They can do this. They did it in 1985, and they can create a fund for us now,” Seaver said.

•••

If the tolls are removed, the Department of Highways would have to take responsibility for maintaining the road, a task that DOH leaders are quick to say they cannot do, even considering the fact that the state has received federal funding that was allocated for the Turnpike and was spent elsewhere.

The way the bond paperwork that refinanced the road in 1989 was written, the Turnpike was required to be self-sustaining through tolls. Meanwhile, the federal government continued paying the state for those 88 linear miles and 415 lane miles through a formula that distributes each state’s funds from the federal gasoline tax.

Seaver said the state did the right thing, since the bonds required the Turnpike to maintain itself and the state needed the money to keep other roads up to necessary, safe standards.

He estimated the state DOH still has a $500 million to $800 million backlog of deferred maintenance projects throughout the Mountain State.

He believes the only way to fund Turnpike maintenance without tolls is to add another 7.5 to 10 cents in state gasoline tax to every gallon of fuel sold in the state, and he said legislators in other areas of the state would never consent to such a move.

•••

Mercer County Del. Marty Gearheart vehemently disagrees that the tolls are necessary or beneficial to southern West Virginia. He has vowed to sponsor a bill this term to remove the tolls in 2020, just after the bonds are paid in full.

“I think [Seaver’s] opinion is misguided, and is based on the idea that more taxes and more things provided by the government with those tax dollars are better,” Gearheart said. “In my opinion, unleashing the economic engine that is the West Virginia Turnpike will do more for the economy in southern West Virginia than almost anything else we can do.”

He said that ever trip to Beckley and Charleston from southern West Virginia carries a tax that is not placed upon products and people traveling to or from any other part of the state. When those products and purposes cost more for the people transporting them, Gearheart said, they also cost the consumers more.

“When it is reflected in price, it makes  us less competitive,” Gearheart said.

The Mercer County lawmaker believes that removing tolls completely would actually increase the ridership on it, bringing more people into the state and allowing more southern West Virginians to shop inside state borders without paying to get to their stores.

Plus, after 2019, the tolls will have fulfilled their purpose, in his eyes.

“The tolls were put on the highway to construct it. They haven’t been used for that purpose since 1992,” Gearheart said. “The highway has been constructed with tolls. It has been rebuilt and brought up to interstate standards with tolls. They’ve done what they were put into place to do. It’s time to remove that yolk from the folks of southern West Virginia.”

He pledged that a bill introduced in 2013 will account for the future maintenance of the Turnpike.

“The bill that we’re authoring this year, not only will it remove the tolls in 2020, but we will provide what we believe is full maintenance dollars until 2035,” Gearheart said. “The department of highways is already funded for that maintenance.”

He said lawmakers are already drafting a plan to provide approximately 50 percent of the maintenance fees after 2035, and that DOH should realistically be able to provide the rest.

“[Toll supporters are] saying that since we don’t spend our dollars very economically, we need to keep getting the dollars. It’s not a logical argument. It’s a big government argument, and in today’s economic times, we don’t have room for big-government arguments.”

•••

Development Authority of Mercer County Executive Director Janet Bailey can see both sides of the argument, but she said removing tolls would ultimately serve Mercer County businesses better.

“It has been a hardship, and I speak for our businesses. For their benefit, I would like to request them to remove the tolls when the bonds are paid,” Bailey said.

She was sympathetic to the DOH plight, but said it places an unfair fee on businesspeople in southern West Virginia that entrepreneurs in no other part of the state face.

“If [the state] continues with those tolls, I would like to see Mercer County benefit from them, but really, I would prefer that they just come off,” she said.

•••

Seaver promised he won’t stop spreading his message, no matter how unpopular it might be at this time.

“I stand by that 100 percent, and I’m going to start shouting it,” he said.

— Contact Tammie Toler at ttoler@ptonline.net.