CLEVELAND — Drivers on the Ohio Turnpike will soon have a smoother option to enter the Buckeye State from Pennsylvania, the Turnpike announced Thursday.
The Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission announced Thursday that a project to add a westbound open road tolling lane at the Eastgate Toll Plaza in Mahoning County has been completed. That means motorists driving westbound through the Eastgate Toll Plaza at milepost 239, located near Ohio's eastern border with Pennsylvania, will have the option to forego slowing down to go through a toll booth.
Westbound travelers entering Ohio from Pennsylvania who have an E-ZPass can now stay to the left and keep driving on the new open road tolling lanes, without stopping or slowing down from normal highway speed. Westbound drivers without an E-ZPass must still drive to the right, stop at the Eastgate Toll Plaza and pay a roundtrip, flat-rate toll, the Turnpike said.
Drivers going eastbound through the Eastgate Toll Plaza no longer have to pay a toll, as of April when the Turnpike began its new toll collection system. That rollout hit some bumps in the road; 3News Investigates reported in September that hundreds of thousands of drivers had driven through the Turnpike's new plazas without paying, while the Trumbull County Plaza failed to detect the E-ZPass transponders of more than 267,000 drivers from April to August. When 3News Investigates asked for updated information last month amid customer complaints and safety concerns, the Turnpike responded that new info isn't available.
