The Pennsylvania Turnpike’s updated tolling infrastructure is heading westward, as the agency prepares to activate the rest of its new contactless system to replace tollbooths.
Workers are currently installing open road tolling equipment on the turnpike’s new gantries at milepost 185.2 in Huntingdon County and milepost 168.4 in Fulton County, according to turnpike spokesperson Crispin Havener.
Gantries hang over the Turnpike, meaning that drivers will not have to slow down as they pass through. Scanners on the gantries and in the roadway identify vehicles and electronically process tolls, “allowing for free-flowing traffic, which reduces accidents, improves the environment, and allows new access points,” Havener said.
Havener said he expects construction to reach Pittsburgh sometime this summer. Commuters may deal with temporary lane closures with posted signage as workers move gantry-to-gantry, he said.
Bringing 565 miles’ worth of open road tolling equipment online was a multi-year process. The Turnpike already activated the system east of the Reading Interchange and on the Northeast Extension toward Scranton beginning in January of 2025, Havener said.
The commission remains on track to activate the new system from Reading to the Ohio border in early 2027, he said.
Havener recommended that commuters check if their E-ZPass accounts are up to date and their physical passes are properly mounted on their vehicles before the new system activates, since there will be more scanners than before to read the passes and cars will pass the equipment at high speeds.