This week, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission approved a plan to hike tolls by 6% in 2019.
The toll increase is slated to go into effect at 12:01 a.m. on January 6, 2019.
For Class 5 trucks, the most common toll will increase from $3.45 to $3.66 for EZ-Pass users and from $15.35 to $16.30 for those who pay with cash.
This will mark the eleventh consecutive year that the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has elected to increase tolls. The toll increases have been needed to fund both infrastructure improvements and to fulfill a legal funding obligation to PennDOT. Pennsylvania Turnpike CEO Mark Compton says that since 2009, the turnpike commission has paid out over $6.2 billion in toll-backed funding to PennDOT.
Compton says that infrastructure improvement is a main goal in the months ahead: “Parts of our tollway will soon turn 78 years old, and we owe it to toll-paying customers to continue to invest in our road to make it safer, smoother and wider. This year, about 84 percent of our $552 million capital budget is focused on renewing, rebuilding and widening our highway system which last year carried more than 200 million vehicles.”
It isn’t clear whether any of the infrastructure budget will be spent on repairs on the Lehigh Tunnel, where a trucker lost life earlier this year when corroded steel straps failed and caused an electrical conduit to crash through his semi truck’s windshield.
Earlier this year, a group spearheaded by OOIDA sued the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission for excessive toll increases.