*IF* anyone is traveling in Oklahoma

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – Two turnpikes in the state will be accepting exact change only out of an abundance of caution due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, the John Kilpatrick Turnpike in Oklahoma City and the Creek Turnpike in Tulsa will be accepting exact change only for the foreseeable future.

OTA says, “Beginning 3/29/2020, JKT/Creek Turnpikes will be exact change only. Out of an abundance of caution, toll attendants will not be staffing these plazas in consideration for both city’s shelter-in-place order as directed by Mayor of each city.”

Mayors of Oklahoma City and Tulsa have both issued shelter-in-place orders for the cities.

George,

Thanks for the information.

Mark

This is a pretty common reaction, and something I'd just expect at toll booths for the foreseeable future.

Illinois closed down all of their cash toll booths about 2 weeks ago. You're expected to pay online if you don't have an i-pass or EZ-Pass.

I am completely in favor of a national law standardizing the acceptance of all toll transponders, be they iPass, SunPass, EZ-Pass, etc. And none of these companies' members should be penalized for using a competitor's transponder.

Toll roads are something we try to avoid if possible, especially those varieties that take a photo of your license plate and send you the bill later! (Or you go online and try to pay it.) Though our daughter lives right near the toll road E470 in the Denver area, we will do our best to Shun-Pike it.

The transponders are a pain in the neck for just the reason landmariner suggested -- too many different ones and they won't all work together. If the companies would allow them to work together, maybe I'd consider one. Otherwise, for the very very few times we do take a toll road, we'll have the cash needed. (The last toll road we took, I believe, was the KS Turnpike between KC and Topeka.)


Donna

People are out of work as businesses are forced to shut down, but the state is still collecting its money. They could have just raised the gates.

Anyway, where I live in Florida, toll booths are being demolished as “Toll By Plate” has taken over. A picture is taken of your license plate and you are mailed a bill. If you set up a transponder account, there is a slight discount, but such an account is not necessary.

I wish all toll roads had Toll By Plate.

It is certainly a pain in the butt! Toll-by-plate is probably the easiest to manage although I fear receiving 20 letters/billings as each area would have their own piggy bank.

Really confounding for me now is having both a Florida SunPass sticker and a Maryland EZ-Pass velcro. I bought the SunPass sticker as my parents were living in Central Florida and I was having to use the turnpike or roads around Orlando (which are a maze of different toll systems including short segments of EZ-Pass but also SunPass and some other -Pass). So now I need to be sure to remove the EZ-Pass (and not forget to attach it later) plus shield it from being double-billed. At some point, always in the undefined future, both SunPass and EZ-Pass will be interchangeable throughout their respective regions... but who knows when and how that information will be communicated.

Trucking companies already have universal transponders, but they are part of a management system that they subscribe to, and include weigh station bypass. Not feasible at this time for individual non-commercial travelers. Universal acceptance was *supposed* to happen by 2012 but obviously this hasn't happened.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by travelingman

I wish all toll roads had Toll By Plate.

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It's the only thing we have had for more than 20 years. If you don't have a transponder the cost is much higher. I live right near a toll road (into the city), never use it and don't have a transsponder!

The only thing good about toll roads is having shares in the company. They pay good dividends.

Lifey

I really don't like toll roads and especially hate the cop-out public-private partnership toll roads that are beginning to grip the metro areas of DC and other areas. Nice if you are a lobbyist or top dog in a corporate company in D.C., and receive free usage of transponders for traffic free drives to work, but not for the rest of us. Former commuter express lanes have been converted into toll road sections of the highway such as on I-95 south of D.C. And the real get is the express lane "super toll" road part of a toll road... a "premium service."

It would be nice to have a nationwide transponder. In Massachusetts, we had "Fast Lane" before joining the "E-ZPass" contingent. After a few years the toll booths were removed and now we have gantries along the Mass Pike. There isn't a gantry for every exit - they're over the highway itself - so there are sections that are effectively "free."

I must admit it has made some of the more congested exits much easier to navigate.

It's been a while but in New York there were still sections with the old-fashioned gates that everyone had to stop at, whether or not they had a transponder. You'd have to stop in the tollbooth and then wait for the light to turn green and the gate to come up.

New York was/is in process to convert the Thruway to a similar system as the Mass Pike (but for some reason having the gantries at each exit rather than over the highway - I guess either works, and this is more like the existing system to track where you enter & exit). They had already set up the drive thru EZ Pass lanes at the southern end (Harriman) - not sure if they did the same out on the Western end or not, but the connection to the Mass Pike still has only booths (though you don't have to stop completely).

The only ones I can think of locally that are more like you mention would be the bridges crossing the Hudson south of Albany and north of the city area, likely since they have much less room for toll plazas, so building a drive thru lane would be harder to do.