The problem before him is simple, said Joseph G. Brimmeier, the CEO of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission.

"Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die," he told a group of local business people at a Lancaster Chamber of Commerce and Industry breakfast on Thursday.

Brimmeier was defending Act 44, a 10-year funding package for the state's highways, bridges and 73 mass-transit agencies.

Though the legislation passed and was enacted in July, Brimmeier said he is still fighting strong opposition to the law, which authorizes the placement of up to 10 tolling points on I-80.

"There's no question, ladies and gentlemen, that tolling is the way of the future," Brimmeier said.

The price of concrete and steel continues to rise, the commission's leader said, as more and more roads need repairs and additions.

The gasoline tax continues to decrease in the percentage of revenue it adds, and federal funding for roads is all but tapped out, he said.

Tolling the 300-mile I-80, which runs through Pennsylvania between New Jersey and Ohio, will save PennDOT between $100 million and $125 million per year, Brimmeier said.

Currently, an initial application to toll I-80 is pending with the Federal Highway Administration.

If the effort succeeds, Pennsylvania will be the first state ever to convert an existing free interstate highway into a toll road.

The other option, Brimmeier said, is to sell the Pennsylvania Turnpike — a non-solution, according to him.

A tolled I-80 would have tolling points every 30-40 miles, meaning short-distance travelers who get on and off the highway between those toll points wouldn't pay tolls.

By Brimmeier's estimation, 40 percent of traffic on I-80 wouldn't nee dot pay tolls, leaving interstate trucks and cars to bear the burden.

"We've had tremendous opposition" to the plan, Brimmeier confessed.

In a replay of Brimmeier's speech before the Chamber in 2004, truck company owner Joseph Butzer objected to the undue burden that would be felt by his firm and similar businesses if the road were tolled.

"Wouldn't fuel taxes be a better way?" Butzer asked.

"Try to get it passed," Brimmeier retorted. "We're dealing with reality."

"If you continue to do this, we're gonna divert," Butzer continued. "We have to."

As he did in 2004, Butzer again warned that diverting traffic from tolled roads will flood local highways with cargo carriers, creating congestion and safety issues.

Brimmeier said that since 2004, when Butzer warned about traffic diversion resulting from a 42 percent toll hike on the turnpike, no such shift has been observed.

Butzer, and some in the crowd, remained unconvinced about that.

Brimmeier said he expects to hear the federal government's final ruling on I-80 by the end of 2008.

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