<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0VbWuT_1GuLD00H00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0VbWuT_1GuLD00H00" width="800" height="500" ><figcaption>Pennsylvania Penna Turnpike entrance</figcaption></figure>Drivers on the Pennsylvania Turnpike will pay more again starting Jan. 3, 2027, when a 3.5% toll increase takes effect across the system. It is the 19th year in a row that tolls have gone up on what is often called America’s first superhighway.The increase is the smallest since 2014. But it comes on a road that, under a law signed nearly 90 years ago, was supposed to stop charging tolls once it was paid for. That law is still on the books.What changes Jan. 3The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission approved the 3.5% systemwide increase at its July 7 meeting. For drivers without E-ZPass who are billed through Toll By Plate, the per-mile rate rises from 14.6 cents to 15 cents, and the charge at each tolling gantry goes from $2.26 to $2.34.Right now, the most common toll for a passenger car is $1.94 with E-ZPass and $3.88 with Toll By Plate. The commission has not yet released the 2027 figure for that trip. Driving a car the full length of the Turnpike, from the Ohio line to the New Jersey line, now costs $54.56 with E-ZPass and $109.12 by plate, according to the commission’s figures reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. In 2004, the same trip cost a little more than $21.One stretch gets the new rates early. The 2027 toll schedule takes effect on a new section of the Mon/Fayette Expressway near Pittsburgh when that section opens Nov. 20.About 85% of Turnpike trips are paid with E-ZPass, which costs about half as much as Toll By Plate. Drivers without a transponder can cut their monthly Toll By Plate bills by 15% by signing up for autopay through the PA TOLL PAY smartphone app, according to the commission.Nineteen years and countingThe run of yearly increases started after the General Assembly passed Act 44 of 2007, which required the Turnpike to help pay for roads, bridges and transit across the state. The law had the commission send Harrisburg between $900 million and, more recently, $450 million a year. Act 89 of 2013 changed the payments but kept the system in place.To make those payments, the commission borrowed billions of dollars and has raised tolls every year since to cover the debt. Increases ran 6% a year from 2019 through 2021, 5% a year from 2022 through 2025, and 4% in 2026. Before Act 44, the Turnpike had raised tolls only five times in its first 64 years, according to the commission.The commission projects 3% increases each year from 2028 through 2050. Commission Press Secretary Marissa Orbanek told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review the goal is to bring increases down to the rate of inflation by 2028.The commission also says its E-ZPass rate for cars ranks 20th highest among 47 state toll roads, about two cents a mile below the national average of 19 cents.The promise in the 1937 lawGov. George Earle signed Act 211 on May 21, 1937, creating the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. The state put up no money. The road was paid for with federal help and with bonds, many bought by New Deal agencies in Washington, and tolls were supposed to pay off those bonds.Section 15 of the act spelled out what would happen next. Once all the bonds and interest were paid, the law says, the Turnpike “shall become a part of the system of State highways, and shall be maintained by the Department of Highways free of tolls,” and the commission “shall be dissolved.”That language remains in Pennsylvania law under the heading “Turnpike to be free from tolls, when.” A 1953 law that governs the commission also says the agency is to be dissolved once its debts are paid.The original 160-mile road between Irwin, near Pittsburgh, and Middlesex, near Carlisle, opened Oct. 1, 1940, after about 23 months of construction. It ran through tunnels dug in the 1880s for the South Pennsylvania Railroad, a line that was never finished, including the Blue Mountain, Kittatinny and Tuscarora tunnels in Franklin and Huntingdon counties. Early tolls worked out to about a penny a mile, according to an Observer-Reporter editorial.U.S. Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., wrote in a 2021 op-ed that Turnpike planners expected to retire the debt and turn the road over to the state toll-free by 1954.Why the tolls never came offThe trigger in the 1937 law was simple: pay off all the bonds. That has never happened.Rather than shrinking, the debt grew as the Turnpike expanded. The road was extended west to the Ohio line and east to Philadelphia and the Delaware River, and the Northeast Extension was built north toward Scranton. Each was paid for with new bonds backed by tolls.In 1956, when Congress created the Interstate Highway System, the Turnpike became part of it. According to the Federal Highway Administration, states that had already built toll roads asked to be repaid, but Washington never reimbursed them, so the tolls stayed to cover the bills.Act 44 in 2007 added billions of dollars more in debt. The law also counted on putting tolls on Interstate 80, but federal highway officials turned that plan down, leaving the Turnpike to carry the payments alone. Thompson wrote in 2021 that the commission was carrying more than $12.5 billion in debt at the time.The 1937 promise still comes up in Harrisburg. In a July 17 release, after the 2027 increase was approved, state Rep. Jeremy Shaffer, R-Allegheny, said residents were told in the 1930s that the Turnpike would be free once its bonds were paid off, and argued that the opposite has happened. He called the Turnpike’s per-mile tolls the highest in the country, a ranking the commission disputes.Another change for local driversThe toll increase is not the only change coming in January. The Turnpike plans to switch its western section, including the Blue Mountain, Willow Hill, Fort Littleton and Breezewood interchanges used by many Tri-State drivers, to Open Road Tolling in January 2027. Drivers will no longer slow down for toll booths. Overhead gantries will read E-ZPass transponders or photograph license plates instead. The commission plans to have all mainline toll booths removed by the end of 2028.Drivers can check what a trip will cost with the toll calculator on the Turnpike’s website, paturnpike.com.</div></body>

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Drivers on the Pennsylvania Turnpike will pay more again starting Jan. 3, 2027, when a 3.5% toll increase takes effect across the system. It is the 19th year in a row that tolls have gone up on what is often called America’s first superhighway. The increase is the smallest...

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Drivers on the Pennsylvania Turnpike will pay more again starting Jan. 3, 2027, when a 3.5% toll increase takes effect across the system. It is the 19th ye

Still Waiting for the Free Ride

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