PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Pennsylvania Turnpike will switch off its tollbooths soon, and drivers will begin to pay tolls in a new way beginning next month.
Starting Jan. 5, tollbooths will be deactivated on the Pennsylvania Turnpike east of Reading and on the Northeast Extension.
That doesn’t mean there’s a free ride, though. Tolls will be charged not at interchanges but by sensors from overhead gantries on the main line of the highway.
“Instead of being charged or tolled at a traditional tollbooth, customers now will be tolled at gantries throughout the roadway,” explained press secretary Marissa Orbanek.
Drivers will pay by E-ZPass. Those without it will be billed by mail. Tolls will be charged based on the segments of the highway driven, not on where a driver gets on or off.
Orbanek said tollbooths will be dismantled starting later in the year.
“Once we launch open road tolling on Jan. 5, we’re going to start to do the demolition of the tollbooths. So you’ll start to see [construction] later in 2025,” she said.
The entire length of the Pennsylvania Turnpike is expected to have open road tolling by 2027.
In addition, the toll rate will increase by 5%, as it has every year since 2009 to pay off money borrowed years ago to fund PennDOT.