Published: June 25, 2009 10:27 pm      

W.Va. Turnpike

Quick repairs will be the only salve to cure the burn of toll hike

A done deal.

That’s pretty much the consensus opinion on how next week’s vote to raise tolls on the West Virginia Turnpike is stacking up.

Members of the West Virginia Parkways Authority will meet at the Charleston Civic Center next Wednesday morning to formally decide on upping the road tariff, and despite a rather significant outcry from many southern West Virginia lawmakers, business leaders and citizens, a 60 percent across-the-board hike is expected to be approved.

Nobody is really surprised over the move, but plenty of things associated with the turnpike and how it has been operated during the past several years have left an awfully bad taste in nearly everyone’s mouth.

The experiment of making the Parkways Authority a pseudo-economic development agency failed miserably and the financial drain of Tamarack has created a huge deficiency when it comes to the amount of funds that should have been being used to maintain and upgrade the 88-mile toll road — now in an absolutely deplorable state of disrepair.

Before you start screaming about Tamarack, we know how important it is to all of West Virginia, but the fiscal requirements for the facility have made it nothing more than a badly leaking money faucet, from the start. It should never have been tied to the Parkways coffers, but hey, as Gov. Joe Manchin would say, it’s another sin from the past that we have to pony up for now.

While the intentions may have been good, the decisions made in the end were bad for the road itself.

So it’s time to keep paying, and pay more real soon.

We guess it’s not necessary to say it, but we will anyway: Fixing the turnpike needs to happen quickly; it will be the only salve that can start to heal the new burn we’re about to experience.