Saturday, June 20, 2009
CLEVELAND (AP) — Manisha Padhye was surprised Friday driving into the state. She had to make an old-fashioned adjustment and stopped at a suburban service plaza to make sure she had some cash handy for the $10.25 turnpike toll.
On a road trip from her home in Cranbury, N.J., to a family funeral in South Bend, Ind., she had guessed she could zip right through toll booths with an E-ZPass transponder for electronic payment attached to the inside of her car’s windshield.
The E-ZPass technology eliminates the need to stop or wait in line for toll tickets and to pay tolls, but that has been slow to arrive at the 241-mile Ohio Turnpike.
“When I was entering the Ohio Turnpike,” Padhye said, “I thought, ’I’m sure they have E-ZPass here, but I didn’t see it. So I thought, ‘What should I do now? What should I do?’ I had to take the ticket. I had no choice.”
Ohio is a major missing piece of a Midwest-to-East Coast electronic tolling system that would allow travelers to drive, for example, between Chicago and New Jersey without having to stop and fret about toll tickets and payments. The billing is automatic, determined by a scanner, and it results in a debit from a prepaid account set up by phone or online.
The Ohio Turnpike Commission on Wednesday approved rules it needs to make the change happen. When it does, toll booths will still exist, but as in 13 other E-ZPass states, electronic tolls will be an option.
Padhye said she remembers how lines at New Jersey toll booths were “so long.”
“Now I use E-ZPass and go right through,” she said. “On this trip I’m on now, it’s been everywhere, except Ohio.”
The Ohio Turnpike’s director, George Distel, who took over in early 2008, said he’s not sure why Ohio has lagged in adopting the E-ZPass electronic-toll technology, which started in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania in 1990 and is widely used there and elsewhere.
“We have been the hole in the doughnut,” Distel said. “During my 15 months we have had many inquiries from customers interested in having E-ZPass. I can’t speak for others before me, but the decision eventually was made to be part of it as a customer service.”
He said Indiana’s adoption of E-ZPass in 2007 probably was a big motivating factor for Ohio Turnpike customers.
He said the Ohio Turnpike’s cost for the system software, equipment and toll booth changes is about $50 million, and the goal is to start it up the last three months of this year, possibly by Oct. 1. Eliminating some toll collectors is likely, he said.
“We will always have some customers insisting to pay by cash, so it will not eliminate the need for some full-time toll takers,” he said.
Cleveland-based Teamsters Local 1436 President Gary Tiboni said the union represents about 320 part-time toll takers and just under 300 who work full time. The Teamsters are pressing to find out specifics of the fate of the toll-booth workers.
“Obviously, the Ohio Turnpike has an obligation under the current labor agreement to negotiate what E-ZPass will mean for our members, but we are just starting the talks,” Tiboni said.
Meanwhile, driver Jim Youngson, of Uniontown, said at the turnpike’s suburban Cleveland service plaza he’s ready for the change. He said he regularly uses the state’s toll road for his business of delivering auto-body parts.
“I think that will make things a lot easier,” he said.