Pa. Turnpike tolls rise Sunday

The new year will bring a bump in the cost of tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Tolls will increase 6 percent starting Jan. 3, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission announced Tuesday. The increase will affect cash customers and E-ZPass users.

The commission is in the midst of a decades long initiative to rebuild and widen most of the turnpike, about 450 miles, from four lanes to six. The work is being done in five to six mile chunks, PTC spokesman Carl Defebo Jr., said, and costs about $600 million annually. There are five areas currently under construction and 117 miles of the road have been repaired. Tolls also help make $450 million in annual payments to the state Department of Transportation, the commission reported.

Tolls have increased on the Turnpike annually since 2009, and this increase lands on the same day as the debute of a cashless toll point at the turnpike bridge between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. That toll will charge $5 for E-ZPass users and $6.75 for everyone else. Vehicles without E-ZPass will be charged through pictures taken of their license plates.

The commission is anticipating annual toll increases of three to six percent through 2044.

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