PA Turnpike Reminds Travelers of 2019 Toll Increase

Pennsylvania Turnpike ^ | January 2, 2019 | Pennsylvania Turnpike News Release

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

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 — 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.)

[Celerity]

“Parts of our roadway are 78 years old, and we owe it to customers, who pay a premium to travel”

Right.. this is why you’ve been chargin an arm and a leg for it all these years !

Or did someone pocket that money ?

[Celerity]

It costs me about $20 to go from Harrisburg to Somerset. I’m tired of it, I’ll drive around it.

I have a huge trip coming up and I’m adding time to the trip to avoid that highway robbery. Prettier scenery a few miles south in WV anyway.

[Kickass Conservative]

Sorry, Orange County, CA.

[GreyFriar]

Thank you.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

No, it was TxDOT.

[BobL]

Thanks, but I don’t remember anyone posting by that name - and I was pretty damn busy here back then, to say the least.

[BobL]

I did find TxDOT on an FR User Search...just one posting though...

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:txdot/index?tab=comments;brevity=full;options=no-change

[fatboy]

Shady said: “We have driven from the Twilight Zone to the Philly area a couple of times a year, Except for the Lehigh Tunnel (the Northbound tube is a disgrace) it is a great timesaver. Much easier than the trip to NYC..”

I live right here in beautiful Carbon County PA and I’m a volley firefighter. Our district covers about 10 miles northbound and 12 miles south on the turnpike, our area just short of the Lehigh Tunnel but sometimes we get called to assist at the tunnel. I’ve seen many nasty accidents on that roadway. As you exit the north tube there is a sweeping left curve in the road and if a car were to go through the guard rail it will descend about 400 feet below. I have been on 3 accidents in the last 15 years were cars have done just that. Not all have been fatal either.

But to my point, it is true that the north bound tube built in 1958 is awful and in comparison the south bound tube circa 1991, is nice. However, last year a trucker was killed in the south bound tube when a conduit on the ceiling fell down and went right through the windshield of his truck. The last time I went thru the tunnel, which I try to avoid doing, about half of the approx. 20 huge fans that ventilate the tube were removed. I have a friend that retired from the tpike and worked that area he told me that the turnpike owns 2 extra fans and constantly rotates two out and replaces them with the extras then has the extra fans rebuilt and the cycle continues. So I wonder why approx. half of the fans are down, these fans are about the size of a small truck.

Here is a link to the story of the truck driver killed by the pipe: https://www.tnonline.com/turnpike-investigating-tunnel-incident

[nd76]

A couple of toll-avoidance routes from the DC area:

1. Westbound. Use I-66 to I-81; go north on I-81 10 miles to Exit 310; VA 37 (this is a sort of Beltway around Winchester). Turn left onto 37 and go 5 miles or so to US 522. Turn left onto 522 and go about 10 miles to VA 127; turn left onto 127, which crosses into West Virginia; then turn right onto WV 29 to Paw Paw, WV; cross the Potomac River there (free bridge), highway becomes MD 51; go 26 miles to Cumberland, and enter I-68 westbound (roughly MM 43) there.

30 miles west on I-68 is the exit to westbound US 40 at Keyser’s Ridge. You can get off there, and go on 40 a total of 50 miles to PA 43 (which is a toll road, I think the total toll is $3) to I-70, and then head west on 70.

You can stay on I-68 for a total of 75 miles from Cumberland to I-79 north. I-70 at Washington, PA is 45 miles north of there.

[nd76]

2. Northbound from DC going toward New York City:

The toll between south of Baltimore to southern New Jersey is $14 ($4 at either Baltimore tunnel; $6 at the Susquehanna River; and $4 at the Delaware line). The toll at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge eastbound is $4. Leaving DC, instead of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, stay on US 50, go past Annapolis, and cross the Bay Bridge. 10 miles east of the bridge, go on US 301 toward Wilmington. North of Middletown, DE, turn right onto DE 896 and go 4 miles to US 13. Go about two miles north on 13, and then at a signal turn left onto DE 1, missing the toll barrier to cross the cable-stayed Summit Bridge, and then follow DE 1 to I-95.

If you start from further south from DC (such as North Carolina), work your way over to I-81, stay on I-81 to I-78 about 25 miles NE of Harrisburg, PA, and stay on I-78 into northern New Jersey.

The cheapest crossing of the Hudson River going toward New England is the I-84 bridge between Newburgh and Beacon, NY. To access this bridge, stay on I-81 until I-84 at Scranton, PA.