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The highest-ranking Wisconsin Senate Democrat says she is skeptical of using toll roads as the solution to the state’s road-funding woes.

WASHINGTON — Allowing states to establish tolling facilities on existing interstate highways would help finance large-scale infrastructure projects, the former governor of Pennsylvania argued while on a panel here on Dec. 8.

Frustrated over more than $9 million in unpaid tolls in the past two fiscal years, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has upped the enforcement ante.

Truckers on the Illinois Tollway will be dealing with their third double-digit increase in three years come January. The 10% rise in 2017 follows a similar one in 2016 and a 40% hike in 2015.

The Texas 71 project, which will add one toll lane in each direction from the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport entrance to east of Texas 130 and straighten out an FM 973 dogleg, missed its contractual completion date of Oct. 7 by several months.

The Oklahoma Turnpike Authority has voted to increase fees on the state’s toll roads by 12% on Jan. 1, with additional hikes of 2.5% set for 2018 and 2019.   

Rhode Island’s truck-only tolling plan can proceed after receiving the go-ahead from the Federal Highway Administration, the state’s Department of Transportation announced Oct. 5.

Pennsylvania’s reliance on toll revenue from the nation’s oldest turnpike to fund other road and mass-transit projects is starting to worry Janney Montgomery Scott’s Alan Schankel.

Longhaul truck drivers who transport freight nationwide must pay tolls in 28 states, which can be cumbersome and overwhelming with more than a dozen different tolling systems. But two companies offering a solution are seeing demand spike this year as a result.