Pennsylvania Turnpike officials will remove toll plazas and upgrade interchanges in phases starting in April 2025, promoting open-road tolling for safer, smoother traffic flow. This conversion across the state is set to be completed by the end of 2026, with significant cost savings projected.
PennDOT photo
Contractors will start removing Pennsylvania Turnpike toll plazas and reconfiguring entrance and exit ramps.
Contractors will start removing Pennsylvania Turnpike toll plazas and reconfiguring entrance and exit ramps on the highway in the eastern part of the state in April 2025, the Pittsburgh Union Progress reported March 23, 2025.
Dismantling 10 sets of closed toll booths on the turnpike's Northeast Extension is the latest step in the agency's conversion to open-road tolling, where motorists pay when they pass under gantries that read their E-ZPass transponder or photograph their license plate and send them a bill in the mail.
The agency switched to that system in January 2025 on the turnpike's mainline from east of Reading to the New Jersey border (which has 10 new gantries) and on the Northeast Extension (which has nine). Ten more are nearing completion in central Pennsylvania, and construction started on 11 others in the west earlier this year between the Fort Littleton interchange in Fulton County and the Ohio border.
The agency changed to all-electronic tolling in spring 2020, when it laid off toll collectors during the pandemic to reduce contact between drivers and collectors. Initially, electronic and photographic equipment were added to the plazas to collect tolls, so drivers still had to slow down, but as the gantries are installed on the roadway, the plazas are no longer needed and traffic will again be free flowing.
The first area where plazas are slated to be eliminated is on the northern end of the turnpike's Northeast Extension, where six interchanges will be removed from the Pa. Highway 903 interchange north to Clarks Summit, near Scranton.
New Enterprise Stone & Lime Co. Inc. won the bid for that particular $13.45 million contract. The New Enterprise, Pa., company will work to rebuild the ramps to narrow the roadway where the booths used to be and create smoother entry and exit ramps.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission also awarded a $13.21 million contract earlier in March to Atglen, Pa.'s J.D. Eckman Inc. to remove toll plazas and upgrade the ramp system on four interchanges from Lansdale to Mahoning Valley.
The conversion of all the plazas in the eastern part of the state should be finished by the end of 2026.
Marissa Orbanek, a Pennsylvania Turnpike spokesperson, told the Union Progress that the redesign of each toll plaza will be unique because of their differing physical settings. In addition to providing a free-flowing entry and exit for the highway, she said:
• The revised road system also should improve safety because motorists will no longer have to weave into and out of traffic lanes to find their appropriate toll booth.
• In addition, motorists will not have to slow down to pay tolls, thus reducing rear-end collisions.
• The revised ramps should increase the line of sight for drivers, as well and cut down on the potential for drivers to travel the wrong way.
• The removal of toll plazas also will eliminate the amount of land PennDOT needs for an interchange and allow it to create more entry and exit points along the toll road.
The first turnpike plaza without toll booths to be designed in the Pittsburgh area is slated to be a new interchange with PA 130 in Westmoreland County's Penn Township, but that project likely will not be built until the mid-2030s.
Work to revise interchanges in the western part of the state should begin after the gantries are put into service in January 2027, according to the Union Progress.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike said that it expects the shift to open-road tolling to save about $25 million annually.
Today's top stories
