For the second time this month, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission removed an item from its agenda Tuesday that would have authorized a 5% toll increase in January, while it reorganized its board.

Routinely, the board votes in July to set toll rates for the following year and has raised tolls for 14 years in a row.

On July 5 and again Tuesday, the secretary leading the meeting said the agenda item for the toll increase had been pulled.

Instead, the board reorganized, naming a new chairman and welcoming back a former board chairman to fill a vacancy. The board usually reorganizes when it gets a new member.

In a statement, CEO Mark Compton said the focus should be on the leadership change and the toll increase will come to a vote when the board meets in August.

The five-member board elected Philadelphia attorney Wadud Ahmad as its new chairman, replacing Yassmin Gramian, the state’s Department of Transportation secretary.

Gramian, who had chaired the board for the past three years, nominated Ahmad as chairman.

The agency had increased tolls by 6% a year from 2015 until this year, when it reduced the annual increase to 5%. The commission had been scheduled to approve another 5% increase for 2023.

Compton said the agency is required under a 2007 state law known as Act 44 to hike rates as needed to support a variety of transportation projects.

“The commission included the adoption of a January 2023 toll increase as part of its statutorily required Act 44 Financial Plan submission that was made on June 1, 2022,” he said. “As such, we are confident this item will be approved at an August commission meeting.”

The agency has been on a schedule to gradually reduce the annual increase to 3% by 2028. That rate is expected to continue through 2050 as the agency pays off debt of about $15 billion.

The turnpike is close to returning to its traffic level of early 2020, before the pandemic devastated driving levels. That resulted in a loss of more than $250 million in revenue for the agency and a reduction in capital spending.

This also will be the first time in more than 12 years that the agency doesn’t have to pay $400 million to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to help pay for pubic transit.

As a result, capital spending has returned to previous levels.