PHILADELPHIA — The Pennsylvania Turnpike may be on the road to the poorhouse.

Required by a 2007 state law to provide billions of dollars for statewide road and bridge repairs and transit operations, the Turnpike is spending more money each year than it makes, despite toll increases that have doubled the cost to travel the Turnpike over the last 10 years.

To meet the financial demands created by the law, Act 44, Turnpike officials have borrowed aggressively, leaving the agency deeper in debt each year. The Turnpike Commission is now more than $7 billion in debt, up from $2 billion in 2002 and $4 billion in 2009. The burden continues to grow, with the Turnpike required to make payments until 2057.

“Because of insufficient sources of cash flows from current operations, the commission plans to issue debt for the foreseeable future to finance its required payments to (the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation),” the commission's auditors reported in the agency's current annual financial report. “There can be no assurance that the commission will be able to continue to issue debt on terms that are acceptable, or at all, to finance these obligations.”

Highway and bridge projects around Pennsylvania have grown dependent on the money from Turnpike toll-payers, and so have transit agencies such as the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.

If the Turnpike stopped making its $450 million-a-year payment to PennDOT, the already strapped state transportation budget would lose about 12 percent of its financing.

That could cost SEPTA about $160 million of its state operating subsidy of $616 million a year, a 25 percent cut that would force fare hikes and service cuts for local bus and train riders.

If the Turnpike defaulted on the payments on its Act 44 debt —which it says it will not do — state law would require taxpayers to pick up the tab through the gasoline tax.

The Turnpike's liabilities now exceed its assets by more than $1.3 billion, a sharp turnabout since 2009, when its assets exceeded its liabilities by more than $150 million.

Meanwhile, tolls have risen sharply: In January, the cash toll for driving a car from Ohio to New Jersey will rise to $39.10 and the E-ZPass toll will go to $30.77. In 2003, the cost was $14.70.

In 2014, tolls will increase by an additional 3 percent. And they will continue to rise every year after that.

State auditor general Jack Wagner, who has been warning for months about the financial condition of the Turnpike, says the Turnpike Commission is “drowning in debt” and faces potential default on its financial obligations.”

Turnpike chief executive Roger Nutt acknowledged in a letter to Wagner in January that “we certainly understand that, in the long term, the funding stream (toll increases) necessary to continue Act 44 funding may not easily be sustained, and so subsequent amendments to the funding requirements may need to be considered.”

The root of the Turnpike's financial woes is Act 44, the 2007 state law that required the Turnpike to contribute $900 million a year for statewide roads, bridges and transit.

To come up with the money, state lawmakers authorized the Turnpike Commission to convert Interstate 80 to a toll road. But the federal Department of Transportation in 2010 denied the application. So the Turnpike's obligation to fund other roads and transit dropped in half in 2011, to $450 million a year, under terms of Act 44.

Currently, the Turnpike brings in about $800 million a year in tolls and other operating revenue. It spends slightly more than $300 million to run the Turnpike. It pays about $300 million on its debt. And it pays the state $450 million as its Act 44 obligation.