Only the word “could” makes it true, and too many readers probably miss that detail. It “could” also not get built, most likely, or, medium likelihood, get built somewhere close to the city on a serpentine path specifically designed to keep it away from open land.

CAP can hardly be blamed for exaggerating the potential negatives of a road they don’t want to see built. That’s how advocacy groups work. But you’d think reporters would have sense enough to take statements like this with a grain of salt.

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1.) Pollution.
ALL highway traffic slowed to a near- or total stop in one location all day –creates a pool of stale hazy exhaust air. Some town near toll plazas in NJ and PA have noxious sooty air.

2.) Noise.
Think you can hear the faint drone of I-81 traffic almost everywhere in the Valley already? Wait ’til all truck traffic is loudly engine-braking to a halt before a toll plaza –and then accelerating back up to highway speed moments later. Rather than some trucks snorting sometimes, it will be ALL of them.

3) Safety.
Two things that are dangerous on highways: merge areas and differential speed (mingling of the slow and the fast). One toll plaza puts ALL traffic through two high-volume merge areas across a short distance and also exposes slowing and idling vehicles to incoming traffic moving at highway speed.

Now that we’re used to gas over two bucks a gallon –in fact $3 gas is “cheap” these days, I’d rather pay an extra nickel or dime per gallon to keep I-81 toll-plaza-free. A gas and diesel user fee all along the I-81 corridor (like maybe 40 miles wide) would pay for the needed third lane. The extra money would be worth it to keep the noise and exhaust away. When gas eventually drops down a bit from the current peak, the few extra cents per gallon won’t be much of a hassle. We pay 3.20 now. When gas drops to 3.05 and there’s a no-toll-plazas nickel tacked on, 3.10 is survivable –not fun but we can do it, as current times show.

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