The Pennsylvania Turnpike is at the intersection of several recent news stories, and none of them are good.

First, there was last month’s announcement that fares will be going up again — for the sixth year.

Paying more every year to drive the state’s major toll road is unwelcome news for motorists. But beyond the annoyance of annual fare hikes, other stories involving the turnpike and its governing body, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, are even more troubling.

The PTC announced that fares will increase 12 percent for motorists paying cash, but only 2 percent for users of EZPass electronic toll devices. The two-tier fare schedule is intended to encourage more motorists to use EZPass, which reduces costs as it replaces toll booth workers. EZPass also shortens traffic backups at toll booths, another plus.

The toll hike is a reminder of the turnpike’s increasingly strained finances, due mostly to the PTC being stuck making annual payments of $450 million to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. The big PennDOT payments are the result of Act 44, a two-part law that included a plan to toll Interstate 80 to generate more money for PennDOT to maintain the state’s highways and bridges.

The I-80 tolling plan was rejected by federal officials, yet the $450 million annual payments to PennDOT remain, and are behind the steady toll hikes. State lawmakers are to blame for not fixing the law or repealing it, once federal approval to toll I-80 was denied.

Despite the annual toll increases, the turnpike does not generate enough money to pay for the payments to PennDOT. So to make those payments, the turnpike commission has been taking on massive amounts of debt — growing the PTC debt from $2 billion in 2007 to about $8 billion today.

Former Auditor General Jack Wagner repeatedly warned that the turnpike’s growing debt was dangerous — and unsustainable.

This week’s news that former state Sen. Vincent Fumo was being released from a federal prison in Kentucky after serving four years on corruption, fraud and obstruction of justice charges is another reminder of other turnpike troubles.

During Fumo’s federal trial on 137 counts of corruption, one small piece of the multifaceted scandal found that the once-powerful state senator was paying a “ghost employee” through a Senate contract, but the employee was doing no work for the state Senate — he was doing personal work for Fumo.

That ghost employee was identified as Mitchell Rubin, one of six people (including former state Sen. Robert Mellow, already in jail for other crimes) facing charges of corruption. Allegations include influence peddling and awarding no-bid contracts to vendors favored by leaders in the state Senate, the same elected officials who appoint and approve members of the turnpike commission.

An 85-page grand jury report described a culture of corruption between the turnpike commission, leaders in the state Senate and vendors looking to land contracts with the PTC. One contractor was approved for a $58 million change order to an information technology contract that came in at $3.2 million, double the next highest bid. The grand jury report also described Harrisburg pols telling PTC officials that they were expected to get turnpike vendors and bidders to spend tens-of-thousands of dollars supporting campaign fundraisers.

One grand jury witness explained the corruption surrounding the turnpike commission, saying simply, “that is where the money is.” While the PTC had hundreds of millions of dollars to play with, there was little or no accountability — and Senate leaders directed the mischief.

Given the history of rigged or no-bid contracts, favoritism, and politics at the turnpike commission, state lawmakers should get behind legislation to scrap the turnpike commission and roll its functions into PennDOT, where there is more accountability over contracts and spending money.