Open road tolling on Pa. Turnpike to launch statewide in early 2027

Traditional Pennsylvania Turnpike interchanges will be a thing of the past come January 2027, when the 85-year-old technology will be swapped for open road tolling across the entire roadway.

Toll roads east of Reading and on the Northeast Extension were converted earlier this year to the open road tolling system, also known as ORT. The system employs gantries, or overhead structures, that scan license plates or EZ-Pass transponders while drivers maintain their speed.

A gantry was built at the Warrendale toll plaza in Cranberry in 2022, and the Southern Beltway debuted a few of the open road tolling sites when it opened in 2021.

The turnpike is working to build 19 gantries west of Reading. There will be a total of 38 statewide — one gantry per existing interchange, said turnpike spokesperson Crispin Havener. Installing the new system will cost about $250 million, he said.

A gantry is being installed at milepost 63.6 in Penn Township. The structure is just down the road from Route 130.

The gantries are primarily meant to increase safety along the turnpike, Havener said.

“You have a whole lot of lanes, a lot of condensing down and moving out and trying to figure out where you’re going,” he said, “and it does cause some safety issues.

“(Open road tolling) will make it easier, traveling just as you normally would.”

But the gantries also mean that future turnpike exit and entry ramps — including one slated for Penn Township’s Route 130 — will take up less space, Havener said.

“(The Route 130 interchange) wouldn’t be possible if we didn’t have open road tolling,” he said, “because we need more space in the traditional interchange system compared to what we’re building now.

“Given how the terrain is and all the buildup there, (the Route 130 interchange) wouldn’t have been possible if we didn’t have open road tolling.”

The Penn Township interchange will be built sometime between fall 2035 and summer 2038. Although the timeline will become clearer as the turnpike moves into the final design phase, the more than 10-year wait is the result of budgetary concerns, the turnpike told TribLive in November.

The interchange will be located near Route 130’s intersection with Sandy Hill, Nike Site and Pleasant Valley roads. Preliminary designs for the project, expected to cost between $60 million to $90 million, were unveiled in November.

Related:

• Long-awaited Pa. Turnpike interchange in Penn Township set to become a reality
• ‘A lot for our small town’ or ‘all for it’: Penn Township residents weigh in on proposed turnpike interchange plan
• ‘Nothing more than a traffic jam’: Penn Township residents dread interchange, loss of quiet community

The traditional interchanges will be deactivated when open road tolling goes live statewide in January 2027, Havener said. Western Pennsylvania’s existing toll booths will be torn down by the end of 2028, and the sites will be reconfigured.

The design for the reconfigured interchanges is up in the air, Havener said.

“Each interchange is going to have a different design,” he said. “We’ll release those as they become available. I know there’s a lot of conversation about that now, but I don’t have anything specific.”

Plans have not yet been made to bring the technology to Route 66, the Amos K. Hutchinson Bypass, Havener said.