The PA Turnpike Commission (PTC) is reminding customers that, beginning 12:01 a.m. on January 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 — like others since 2009 — is required to meet the PA Turnpike’s legislatively mandated funding obligation to support the Commonwealth’s public-transportation systems as well as to maintain and improve the 552-mile Turnpike.
“Parts of our roadway are 78 years old, and we owe it to customers, who pay a premium to travel, to invest in our road and make it safer, smoother and wider,” said PTC CEO Mark Compton. “This year about 84 percent of our $552 million capital budget is focused on renewing, rebuilding and widening our highway which carried more than 200 million vehicles last year.”
The PTC has reconstructed more than 140 miles of its system, with another 11 miles of roadway now being rebuilt and widened and more than 82 miles in planning and design phases. (The PTC does not receive tax appropriations to operate and maintain its roadway.)
Additionally, the Turnpike delivered more than $6 billion in toll-backed funding to PennDOT in the last decade. The PTC’s annual payments of $450 million — mandated by Act 44 of 2007 — are to be reduced to $50 million a year in 2022 under Act 89 of 2013.
This six-percent toll increase will apply to all PA Turnpike sections and extensions, including the westbound Delaware River Bridge cashless tolling point (#359) in Bucks County, where tolls have not changed since January 2016.