Cashless Tolling coming soon to Kansas Turnpike

[route56]

There's a big thread on the Oklahoma Turnpikes going to a cashless system. It's time to give their northern neighbor some love.

https://fox4kc.com/news/kansas-news/with-cashless-system-say-goodbye-to-toll-booths-on-kansas-turnpike-soon/

As a regular commuter on the Turnpike between Lawrence and Topeka, I have seen the new gantries for the Cashless tolling service go up.

* There are gantries for both directions on each side of Exit 202. The westbound gantries on the east side of Exit 202 also have a new Exit arrow sign for the exit on the Gantry. How do I know it's a new sign: It's in FHWA Series E(M).

* There's an eastbound gantry just east of the Topeka Service Plaza, and a westbound gantry right at the west end of the Topeka Service Plaza.

* The new gatries have streetlight-style lighting. (as opposed to those giant light towers) There are currently blue signs stating "Cashless Tolling Coming 2024"

[ElishaGOtis]

BUMP

I have an update from GSV. https://maps.app.goo.gl/oXQFDfyZDPDsu3J99

This shows the aforementioned blue sign. A website is listed - driveks.com - which confirms that cashless tolling will be active starting July 2024. Like other ORT toll systems, this appears to be using be segment/zone based tolling with gantries between each exit. Not sure if they will be fully using toll-by-plate or if they'll keep using online-only payments like on Exit 53A / US-400.

[vdeane]

Not sure if they will be fully using toll-by-plate or if they'll keep using online-only payments like on Exit 53A / US-400.

I guess it's not just Illinois.

[ElishaGOtis]

Not sure if they will be fully using toll-by-plate or if they'll keep using online-only payments like on Exit 53A / US-400.

I guess it's not just Illinois.

There's also San Joaquin TCA. Arguably it's cheaper for the agency to direct motorists to pay online after travel, but certainly not as convenient for motorists compared to traditional toll-by-plate mail invoices... Thankfully, on both the Kansas Turnpike and ISTHA's tollways, one can use SunPass PRO.

[route56]

Now that Kansas Turnpike has officailly gone Cashless...

* At the new cashless gantires, including the previously installed open-road tolling gantries at East Topeka and the Eastern Terminial, the blue "Coming 2024" signs have been replaced by new green ones stating "Kansas Turnpike Toll Zone XXX" (where XXX is the nearest mile marker).

Access to the Toll booths at the Eastern Terminal have been blocked off. At East Topeka, access to the toll booths from the Eastbound I-70 mainline ONLY has been blocked. The toll booth areas at East Topeka still serve as ramps from westbound I-70 to the Oakland Expressway northbound and from the Oakland Expressway southbound to eastbound I-70.

[kphoger]

Ugh.  We just got a bill at work from the turnpike authority for a toll violation back in early February.  The company vehicle had a temporary tag at the time but, of course, we don't have any vehicles with temp tags currently.  So now we can't figure out whose vehicle it was in order to charge the right person.

Toll booths should just take cash.

[The Ghostbuster]

Cash and ticket tollbooths are obsolete. It is much better (and faster) to have electronic cashless toll plazas.

[Scott5114]

Cash and ticket tollbooths are obsolete. It is much better (and faster) to have electronic cashless toll plazas.

How is what Kyle's company is going through better and faster than taking cash?

[Ned Weasel]

Ugh.  We just got a bill at work from the turnpike authority for a toll violation back in early February.  The company vehicle had a temporary tag at the time but, of course, we don't have any vehicles with temp tags currently.  So now we can't figure out whose vehicle it was in order to charge the right person.

Toll booths should just take cash.

Are there any toll facilities that are planning to keep cash booths indefinitely?  As far as I can tell from a quick search, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Maine still have them, but they seem to be holdouts among a dwindling number of places where you can pay tolls with cash.

I get how it's a benefit to the end user to keep accepting cash payments and avoid hassles for the customer.  And it's not like they even require a large amount of human staffing anymore, since Kansas started using vending machine-style cash booths before getting rid of the cash booths altogether.  The only thing that's undeniably saved by eliminating cash booths is space.

[vdeane]

Are there any toll facilities that are planning to keep cash booths indefinitely?  As far as I can tell from a quick search, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Maine still have them, but they seem to be holdouts among a dwindling number of places where you can pay tolls with cash.

New Hampshire is very slowly converting to AET.  IIRC both New Jersey and Maine have long-term plans to switch, but nothing in the foreseeable future (other than the Atlantic City Expressway switching this year).  I wouldn't be surprised if Delaware does as well given the US 301 is AET.  Not sure on West Virginia - there are no plans to change the mainline in the foreseeable future, but aren't they experimenting with AET on the Corridor L toll?  But as far as I'm aware, Indiana and Ohio plan to stay exactly as they are.

[The_Ginger]

Are there any toll facilities that are planning to keep cash booths indefinitely?  As far as I can tell from a quick search, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Maine still have them, but they seem to be holdouts among a dwindling number of places where you can pay tolls with cash.

West Virginia has converted the Corridor L/US 19 exit to a pay-by-plate system, but that's it. As far as funds go it could happen, but it would be with the old system and no open-road tolling anytime soon.

[Scott5114]

I get how it's a benefit to the end user to keep accepting cash payments and avoid hassles for the customer.  And it's not like they even require a large amount of human staffing anymore, since Kansas started using vending machine-style cash booths before getting rid of the cash booths altogether.  The only thing that's undeniably saved by eliminating cash booths is space.

Even the KTA vending machines require some human labor, even when they work perfectly. (Someone's gotta go out there and pull the money out every now and then, and presumably you'd send more than one person to make it less likely they'd just run off to Oklahoma with all the cash.)  And as someone who's worked with large numbers of automated money-taking machines before, I've always sort of wondered what happened if your bill jammed in the acceptor at, say, the Cassoday plaza. Did each plaza have an attendant that can fish it out, or would the lane just be closed until someone could drive up from Wichita? How do they resolve "I put a $20 in and it credited it as a $5?"

[elsmere241]

During our road trip from hell in 2022, we had to do a couple of major shunpikes.

When we crossed from Missouri to Oklahoma on I-44, we got charged around $17 due to the trailer we were towing.  We got off for gas at US 59 and got a good chunk of that back since it had been the full toll to Tulsa.  We took 59 down from there to I-40.

We basically took I-70 east going home, starting at Limon.  We had come through before, and that time the car toll for the Kansas Turnpike from Topeka east was $3.00 - for a basic vehicle.  Now it had been a few years, we were towing that dumb trailer, Kansas didn't accept EZPass, we and didn't have any more cash on us.  I'd come through the area enough times (and had kept up on things with the Rand McNally over the years) to remember the road setup in the area.

Growing up, our route from Nashville to Salt Lake came the other way, spending the night in Lawrence.  The hotel was usually on West 6th Street, then also US 40.  My mother would insist at least twice that we take 40 over to Topeka because she hadn't liked driving on the Turnpike part of I-70 the night before.  I knew to jump off I-70 to US 40 right before it meets the Turnpike.

I was surprised that US 40 was still a two-lane rural road right even just east of Topeka.  I knew to drop to K-10 in Lawrence etc.  I was surprised that Lawrence had a (Super-2) bypass, but it led to K-10 and I took it east to I-435 to I-470 back to 70.  I remember being nervous, manipulating the van and trailer through all that, so I was grateful that the freeways and the interchanges had plenty of breathing room.  (Thank you, MoDOT.)

That was the only trip we took with the trailer.  It took us about two years to get rid of it (long story).

[Rothman]

During our road trip from hell in 2022, we had to do a couple of major shunpikes.

When we crossed from Missouri to Oklahoma on I-44, we got charged around $17 due to the trailer we were towing.  We got off for gas at US 59 and got a good chunk of that back since it had been the full toll to Tulsa.  We took 59 down from there to I-40.

Not sure how you "got a good chunk of it back" by just getting off the toll road.  Shunpiking doesn't refund money spent?

[elsmere241]

During our road trip from hell in 2022, we had to do a couple of major shunpikes.

When we crossed from Missouri to Oklahoma on I-44, we got charged around $17 due to the trailer we were towing.  We got off for gas at US 59 and got a good chunk of that back since it had been the full toll to Tulsa.  We took 59 down from there to I-40.

Not sure how you "got a good chunk of it back" by just getting off the toll road.  Shunpiking doesn't refund money spent?

That's the way it was set up. At the booth just in to OK, we paid the toll for all the way to Tulsa.  The toll collector gave us a receipt.  We turned the receipt in at the booth when we got off, and got a lot of that back.

[Scott5114]

During our road trip from hell in 2022, we had to do a couple of major shunpikes.

When we crossed from Missouri to Oklahoma on I-44, we got charged around $17 due to the trailer we were towing.  We got off for gas at US 59 and got a good chunk of that back since it had been the full toll to Tulsa.  We took 59 down from there to I-40.

Not sure how you "got a good chunk of it back" by just getting off the toll road.  Shunpiking doesn't refund money spent?

Some politician in Oklahoma thought it was a bad look to have a toll plaza right at the Missouri state line as would be required with a traditional ticketing system, so the way the I-44 plazas were set up was that there was only one barrier toll at the midpoint (for the Will Rogers this was around Vinita), where you paid the full Joplin-to-Tulsa fare, and then if you got off between there and the endpoint you would get cash back. The Turner Turnpike operated the same way.

[Rothman]

During our road trip from hell in 2022, we had to do a couple of major shunpikes.

When we crossed from Missouri to Oklahoma on I-44, we got charged around $17 due to the trailer we were towing.  We got off for gas at US 59 and got a good chunk of that back since it had been the full toll to Tulsa.  We took 59 down from there to I-40.

Not sure how you "got a good chunk of it back" by just getting off the toll road.  Shunpiking doesn't refund money spent?

Some politician in Oklahoma thought it was a bad look to have a toll plaza right at the Missouri state line as would be required with a traditional ticketing system, so the way the I-44 plazas were set up was that there was only one barrier toll at the midpoint (for the Will Rogers this was around Vinita), where you paid the full Joplin-to-Tulsa fare, and then if you got off between there and the endpoint you would get cash back. The Turner Turnpike operated the same way.

Whenever I think I know how backwards OK is, someone takes me for another spin.

[Road Hog]

My store keeps getting billed from the KTA because somebody took one of our rental trailers on the turnpike. I don't know if our company ever paid it. Haven't seen a new bill in a few months, though.

[kphoger]

How do they resolve "I put a $20 in and it credited it as a $5?"

Back when the toll booths in Chicagoland took pennies, I used to fill a Frisbee or a stocking cap with forty of them, just dump the whole lot into the basket, and wait about twenty seconds while it counted them all.  Sometimes it counted short, so I had to toss a couple of extra ones in there.  No big deal with pennies, but dollars would be another story.

[Scott5114]

How do they resolve "I put a $20 in and it credited it as a $5?"

Back when the toll booths in Chicagoland took pennies, I used to fill a Frisbee or a stocking cap with forty of them, just dump the whole lot into the basket, and wait about twenty seconds while it counted them all.  Sometimes it counted short, so I had to toss a couple of extra ones in there.  No big deal with pennies, but dollars would be another story.

I can assure you there is someone out there who would think it's a big deal even if it were pennies.

[captkirk_4]

Kansas didn't accept EZPass.

I was baffled by that when I went through there a few years ago. Why not work with the system most of the country is on instead of some weird proprietary nonsense? How well did "Betamax" work out for SONY?

[Scott5114]

Kansas didn't accept EZPass.

I was baffled by that when I went through there a few years ago. Why not work with the system most of the country is on instead of some weird proprietary nonsense? How well did "Betamax" work out for SONY?

How often do you think cars from EZ-Pass land actually drive all the way to Kansas? Especially back in 1995, when K-TAG was introduced, long before I-Pass was EZ-Pass compatible?

[kphoger]

Kansas didn't accept EZPass.

I was baffled by that when I went through there a few years ago. Why not work with the system most of the country is on instead of some weird proprietary nonsense? How well did "Betamax" work out for SONY?

How often do you think cars from EZ-Pass land actually drive all the way to Kansas? Especially back in 1995, when K-TAG was introduced, long before I-Pass was EZ-Pass compatible?

Go one step further.  It could be argued that K-TAG predates E-ZPass.  E-ZPass implementation across all Thruway mainline toll booths wasn't completed until late 1996, and the TBTA and Port Authority in New York City didn't finish their implementations until the following year.  Pennsylvania didn't begin their implementation until late 2000.  That is to say, when K-TAG first launched, you couldn't even use E-ZPass along the entire Thruway in New York, and no other agency in the country was using it either.