July 03, 2018
Google/StreetView
The cash and cashless E-ZPass lanes at the Fort Washington interchange on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Fares on the Pennsylvania Turnpike will rise for the 11th consecutive year after six percent increase was approved on Tuesday.
The toll hike will take effect January 6, 2019.
Under the increase, the typical toll for a passenger vehicle using E-ZPass will increase from $1.30 to $1.38, according to the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. For cash customers, the average toll will rise from $2.10 to $2.25.
The agency said the increase, like the ones before it, is necessary to meet its funding obligations, roadway and bridge maintenance and improvements and a $450 million mandated transfer to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale released the following statement about the toll hike:
“As my previous audit and my 2013 special report requested by House Speaker Mike Turzai predicted, until legislators in Harrisburg address the $450 million payment the Turnpike must make to PennDOT annually, tolls are going to continue to rise," he said. “If they keep raising tolls, middle-class families are going to be forced off the roadway.”
DePasquale said he has teams auditing both PennDOT and the Turnpike Commission, and added the results could help provide some financial relief for motorists.
Tolls will increase turnpike-wide, including the westbound Delaware River Bridge cashless tolling point in Bucks County, where tolls have not changed since January 2016.
“Since 2009, the PTC has increased tolls annually to make good on a funding obligation required by a 2007 state law known as Act 44,” said PA Turnpike CEO Mark Compton in a statement. “Under that law, the commission has delivered $6.1 billion in toll-backed funding to PennDOT in the last 11 years.”
The PTC will post a 2019 trip calculator and toll schedule online later this summer.
