Turnpike toll booth savings plan won't stop fares from rising

(The Center Square) — The future of the Pennsylvania Turnpike is booth-less.

As parts of the eastern side of the state have seen, a $600 million plan will convert the entire length to open road tolling, making all fares payable via E-ZPass or mail.

Starting in January 2025, the turnpike east of Reading and on the northeast extension will be fully open road tolling. Toll booth plazas will be replaced by overhead equipment that electronically charges drivers without the need to slow down or stop.

West of Reading, the Turnpike Commission expects open road tolling to be fully functioning by early 2027.

“It’s a great day in Pennsylvania and another giant step forward for the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission,” Turnpike Chairman and PennDOT Secretary Michael Carroll said in a press release.

The open road tolling project started in 2010 with an initial study and several pilots, and officials estimated the total 20-year all-in cost will be $600 million for planning, construction and the rest of the changes.

“The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission solidifies itself once again as a national leader in transportation when we bring the future of toll collection to Pennsylvania through open road tolling,” Turnpike CEO Mark Compton said. “This move reiterates our commitment to the safety of our customers and employees, while modernizing our operations and meeting customer expectations for seamless, nonstop travel.”

In America, Texas started open road tolling back in 2002 , and Florida, Illinois and New Jersey, among others, have followed suit.

In the long run, the commission expects open road tolling to save money on infrastructure.

The cost to build an ORT gantry (the overhead structure) is about $5 million, PTC Construction Engineer Manager Alan Williamson said. The toll booth plaza built in 2016 at Neshaminy Falls in Bucks County, in comparison, was about $85 million.

Overall, officials estimate yearly savings of $25 million on maintenance and operating costs when open road tolling is implemented statewide.

Less stopping on the road is also expected to lower emissions by 11 tons annually by 2030, following a 45% reduction of carbon dioxide emissions when cashless tolling was implemented in 2020.

The switch to ORT will also shift how the commission assesses tolls, moving from nine classes of tolls by weight to 11 classes based on height and axle. A base per-mile rate will take over and will charge a typical two-axle car $.07 per mile plus $1.09 per segment (the distance between interchanges) paying with E-ZPass. Toll-by-plate drivers will be charged $.14 per mile plus $2.18 per segment.

Those toll rate changes will take effect systemwide on Jan. 5, 2025.

Electronic tolling removes the need for toll collectors at plazas, causing concerns about drivers who don’t pay. However, based on the results of a 2016 pilot on the Delaware River-Turnpike Toll Bridge, officials don't expect ORT to have a negative effect.

“All the leakage issues … have all been the same, we don’t anticipate that changing in any way,” Chief Engineer Bradley Heigel said.

The latest PTC report on payments from May found that almost 88% of drivers used E-ZPass to pay tolls. Of the remaining 12%, 6% were “paid and expected to be paid” drivers, 5% were uncollected (the driver did not pay within 150 days), and 1.5% were unbillable.

For uncollected tolls, the commission can turn to collections agencies, suspend a vehicle’s registration, or take court action in some cases.

The report noted that “6.5% of all transactions recorded from April 2023 - March 2024 are expected to be unbillable or uncollected, with an estimated value of $180 million.”

Leakage is “vastly a customer-behavior issue — not a system issue,” Commissioner Keith Leaphart told the Senate Transportation Committee in 2023.

Other toll systems have ran 24-hour blitzes to crackdown on toll violators — in New York, MTA police stopped 32 cars in one day for toll violations, finding one driver who owed $60,000 in tolls .

Earlier in July, turnpike commissioners approved a 5% toll increase due to ongoing debt repayments — annual increases are expected through “at least 2053,” officials noted last year.