A five-axle truck running the Pennsylvania Turnpike on I-76 East across the state can rack up a $212 toll by the time it exits the state near Scranton on I-81, without stopping once, and if the bill isn't paid in 30 days, add another $5 on top of that.
That's for a Class 8 tractor-trailer that doesn't use E-ZPass for electronic toll collections, which would cut the bill by more than half to $105 and could be automatically, painlessly paid before any late fees.
State-collected toll fees and fuel taxes, burdens of course borne by owner-operators among other highway users, account for about 37% of all funding for highway and road spending (tolling, along with other more local fees, contributes 11%), and the 2021 highway bill will likely only continue to expand the number of tolled roads as states seek ways to expand on federal government funding for new building projects.
It's safe to say that toll roads are expanding not just in terms of miles, with Florida in the process of adding 330 miles of new toll roads, but also in price. In 2010, the Pennsylvania turnpike brought in about $57 million per month on 15 million or so vehicles. In 2022, that same system is seeing around $120 million a month on just around 16 million vehicles. Rarely do state or local toll authorities reverse course and reduce toll prices. When the state of Washington made news with reduced fares on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, it was trumpeted as likely first time the state had done anything like that -- ever.
Furthermore, with so many different state authorities setting tolls, owner-operators are left to sort through a patchwork of options for toll collections, with plenty of regional and some national options.
Robert Ellis, owner-operator out of Swanzey, New Hampshire, hauls "from Canada to Florida" and mostly gets by with E-ZPass, he said, the 19-state network concentrated in the Midwest and East Coast. Ellis said the service costs just $30 a month in addition to tolls incurred. He used to plan trips to avoid tolls, "but now with fuel so much, it's cheaper to run the toll road than go around it" often enough, he said.
"Before I had E-ZPass, it was a pain," said Ellis, who only maintains a P.O. Box and mostly lives in his truck hauling year-round. By the time he got the bill in the mail, he said late fees or interest could make the toll "almost double" the original fee.
