Free Republic

Among the many trends the pandemic accelerated, one of the least noted has been the increase in so-called cashless toll roads—highways where electronic fee-collection systems have replaced human toll collectors. Now, as traffic returns to pre-pandemic levels, another trend is plaguing these new systems: fare evasion. Around the country, turnpike authorities and bridge and tunnel operators are logging hundreds of millions of dollars in losses as scofflaws find increasingly inventive ways to outfox the systems. Though advocates say that the losses represent a small portion of total revenues, some officials are contemplating raising tolls to account for the shortfalls—in the...

In an effort to make it easier for customers to pay bills they receive by mail, the Pennsylvania Turnpike is linking with a national network that will accept cash at hundreds of convenience stores, drug stores and other outlets. The turnpike is partnering with the KUBRA Cash Payment Network to allow motorists to pay tolls or other turnpike fees at places such as 7-Eleven, CVS, Dollar General, Family Dollar, Sheetz and Walgreens, among others. The program — which includes a $1.50 surcharge for each transaction — is an attempt to make it easier for customers to pay and reduce the...

The Pennsylvania Turnpike will install overhead tolling gantries on nine bridges that the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is considering for tolls. The work will be part of the turnpike’s $125 million project to install open-road tolling to replace the former toll booths along its 450-mile system. The possibility of PennDOT adding tolls to bridges — including the Interstate 79 bridge near Bridgeville — to raise money for their replacement is still under consideration, but the agency is finalizing an agreement with the turnpike to collect tolls. The turnpike is an obvious choice to operate the collection system — something PennDOT...

More than $104 million in Pennsylvania Turnpike tolls went uncollected last year. Now Pennsylvania House Transportation Committee members are proposing a move to more quickly bring toll violators into compliance to help the debt-ridden turnpike. Currently, toll violators are subject to a suspended vehicle registration if they have at least six unpaid tolls, or total unpaid tolls of at least $500, with a three-year statute of limitations. The suspension continues until a violator’s outstanding tolls are fully paid. A new rule would lower the threshold triggering a registration suspension from six violations of unpaid tolls to four violations, or from...

With commercial traffic returning to pre-pandemic levels, the Pennsylvania Turnpike is increasing its spending on road improvements by nearly $200 million for the fiscal year that begins June 1. The turnpike commission Tuesday approved the capital spending increase to $660 million for the new year along with passing an operating budget of $417.3 million, about 2% lower than the current spending plan. Last year, the agency cut its capital spending from $606 million to $468 million as a result of losing more than $250 million in tolls due to reduced travel during the pandemic. Turnpike CEO Mark Compton said in...

Steve Hrvoich stood in the year-old valley beneath girders for the new northbound bridge on Interstate 79 on Thursday as gigantic dump trucks known as triple 7s whizzed by, hauling up to 100 tons of dirt each from the east side of the highway to the west. Crews for Walsh Construction II were a few days away from completing what Mr. Hrvoich, the construction engineering manager for the Pennsylvania Turnpike, called “the big eastern spread.” The crews moved 2 million cubic yards of earth from the eastern side of the valley, clearing space to install thousands of feet of drain...

HARRISBURG, PA. (JULY 21, 2020) — The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) today approved a six-percent toll increase for all E-ZPass rates systemwide and for PA Turnpike TOLL BY PLATE rates that had been established before last month’s permanent conversion to All-Electronic Tolling (AET) at these locations: Beaver Valley Expressway (I-376); Delaware River Bridge (NJ border); Gateway Toll Plaza (Ohio border); Greensburg Bypass (PA Turnpike 66); Keyser Ave. and Clarkes Summit Tolls (Northeastern Extension); and Southern Beltway (PA Turnpike 576). The increase — slated to take effect at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 3, 2021 — will enable the PTC to continue...

Oct. 1 marks the 80th anniversary of the opening of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. For most people today, this is no cause for celebration. Today, when people hear the words “Pennsylvania Turnpike,” the thoughts that come to mind are: antiquated, too many trucks and, more than anything, ever-rising tolls. But it wasn’t always this way.

Pennsylvania officials reopened over a dozen rest areas on a Thursday, heeding to calls from truckers who are working tirelessly to keep the country’s supply chains open amid the ongoing spread of the deadly Chinese coronavirus. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation reopened 13 of its 30 rest stops on a limited basis on the interstates and throughout the Pennsylvania Turnpike. PennDOT spokeswoman Alexis Campbell said in a statement that the sites will have five portable toilets, though the services plazas will remain closed due to a lack of cleaning staff. The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission reopened all 17 of its service...

After years of concern about the number of traffic accidents that occur in road construction zones, Pennsylvania is doing something about it. Beginning Jan. 4, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Pennsylvania Turnpike will begin a 60-day pilot program to formally test what’s called the Automated Work Zone Speed Enforcement program. The program is designed to cause drivers to slow down in construction areas by setting up speed monitoring equipment in work areas. After the pilot program is finished, the two state agencies expect to deploy private contractors in white Jeep Cherokee SUVs at various sites throughout the state to...

Pennsylvania Turnpike users can expect 6% toll increases in 2020 and 2021 but then — if the state Legislature follows through with plans to change how the state funds public transit — the rate of annual increases gradually will go down to 3% in 2028. Nikolaus Grieshaber, the turnpike’s chief financial officer, outlined the agency’s financial future recently in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about the 6% toll hike that begins Jan. 5. The increase marks the 12th year in a row that rates have gone up and will increase the fee for a car traveling the length of...

The Pennsylvania Turnpike is done with four years of testing and will move full speed ahead with a $129 million project to become a completely cashless toll system by the fall of 2021. Although the system won’t take cash after that point, the agency expects to continue using toll booths at some exit ramps across the state until 2026. Those booths will record E-ZPass transponder signals or take license plate photographs so the agency can mail bills to drivers until the agency finishes installing 43 overhead gantries on the mainline and Northeast Extension in three phases over the next six...

Will a hyperloop work in Pennsylvania? That’s the question officials from legislative and executive branches, statewide agencies, organizations and departments, as well as a handful of private business leaders are trying to answer. Fifty people, invited to a workshop at Dixon University in Harrisburg on Wednesday, met to talk about the possibility of building a hyperloop system in the commonwealth. The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has until April 2020 to complete a $2 million state-legislative commissioned study on its viability. Media wasn’t permitted to attend the invitation-only meeting. According to the turnpike’s research, a hyperloop combines a magnetic levitation train and...

Call it the $350 million question. Over the next six weeks, the Pennsylvania Turnpike will try to decide whether to rehabilitate its five sets of tunnels one at a time over 10 to 15 years or enter into a public-private partnership with one firm that would do all of the work in five to six years and be responsible for maintenance for about 30 years. And the $350 million is key because a large part of that money would be the upfront cost if the agency decides to pursue a partnership, said Brad Heigel, the turnpike’s chief engineer. Mr. Heigel...

LOWER SALFORD — There are times when Cassel Road should be closed down because of the mud on the road from the work to widen the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Lower Salford Township Board of Supervisors member Phil Heilman said at the board's Nov. 21 morning work session. He drove on the road on a recent day, he said. "It was solid mud," he said. Heilman said he was driving behind another vehicle. "His car was chocolate, just like mine," Heilman said. "We gotta keep an eye on that." Police Chief Tom Medwid said officers are checking on...

HARRISBURG, PA (JAN. 2, 2019) — The PA Turnpike Commission (PTC) today reminded customers that, beginning 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 6, tolls will reflect a six-percent increase for cash, E-ZPass and PA Turnpike TOLL BY PLATE users. The increase, approved by commissioners last July, is needed to meet the PTC’s dual funding obligation to improve its toll-road system and support mass-transit improvements across the Commonwealth. As a result, the most-common toll for a passenger vehicle will increase a dime for E-ZPass customers from $1.30 to $1.40 and 20 cents for cash customers from $2.10 to $2.30. The toll increase —...

BRISTOL TOWNSHIP >> The long-awaited interchange connecting Interstates 95 and 276 (the PA Turnpike) in Bucks County is officially open. Officials from the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, the Pa. Department of Transportation (PennDOT), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and representatives from ground-transportation agencies in neighboring states gathered on Friday to commemorate completion of major, Stage 1 components of the Turnpike/Interstate 95 Interchange Project. “Motorists who travel in this area have been waiting a long time to realize the benefits this direct link will bring, namely reduced congestion on Bucks County roadways and improved traffic flow in the Philadelphia region and the...

The next time you drive through a highway work zone, or past an accident scene or a disabled vehicle, think about Robert Gensimore. A highway foreman for PennDOT, he was struck by a car and killed last week while setting up flares to warn motorists about an accident on Interstate 99 near Altoona. Gensimore was 45. His funeral is this morning. He was like many of us. Married, two kids, star high-school athlete, active in his community as a volunteer firefighter. He was just doing his job when he died. About 90 PennDOT workers have been killed on the job...

Elizabeth Zemba of Mt. Pleasant, a daily Pennsylvania Turnpike traveler, turned to art and creativity to express frustration with the highway's ever-rising tolls. She created an Internet meme. A photo of a turnpike tollbooth is overlaid with the logo: "Pennsylvania Turnpike re-inventing highway robbery since 2009." For many, annual turnpike toll increases simply have become too much to bear. Two weeks ago, a coalition of truckers and motorists advocates filed a class action suit against the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, PennDOT and Gov. Tom Wolf, seeking to recoup "excessive fees" that went to underwrite projects other than the operation of the...

PENNINGTON, N.J.—The past few years have been thick with promises of shiny new infrastructure and the revival of American greatness. Funny, then, that so little has been made of a quiet victory for U.S. infrastructure due later this year. By September 2018, one of the country’s most famous civil-engineering projects will finally complete construction, six decades after work on it began. Interstate 95, the country’s most used highway, will finally run as one continuous road between Miami and Maine by the late summer. The interstate’s infamous “gap” on the Pennsylvania and New Jersey border will be closed, turning I-95 into...