Aug 24, 2010 By Amy Revak 2 min read

While the 60-mile Mon/Fayette Expressway remains a work in progress, it will cost more to travel the completed sections of the highway starting next year. In January, the toll rates for the Pennsylvania Turnpike will increase by 10 percent for cash customers and increase by 3 percent for E-Z Pass users. Although E-Z Pass users will face less of an increase than cash customers under the new rates, the cost of their annual service fee will double.

The expressway, or Toll Road 43, is a part of the Pennsylvania Turnpike system.

The service fee to have an E-Z Pass account will go from the current $3 annual rate to a $6 annual rate effective Jan. 1, 2011.

While it now costs $1 to travel on the open seven-mile section linking Uniontown and Brownsville, it will go up to $1.10 for cash and $1.03 for E-Z Pass customers.

Joseph G. Brimmeier, chief executive officer of the Turnpike Commission, said is will be seven percent less expensive to use E-Z Pass next year.

According to Turnpike Commission spokesman Tom Fox, the toll increases apply to all Turnpike Commission roads except the Findlay connector near Pittsburgh International Airport.

The higher service fee will be charged on the user’s anniversary date, so a customer who ordered E-ZPass in March will be billed the higher fee for the first time in March 2011. Anyone who enrolls between now and the end of the year would pay $3 and avert paying the higher fee until the first anniversary of their enrollment.

According to the Turnpike Commission’s letter to E-Z Pass customers, when the higher rates go into effect in January, it will mark the first time E-Z Pass customers will pay less than cash customers on the Turnpike. About two-thirds of Pennsylvania Turnpike traffic utilizes the E-Z Pass system, in which a transponder is attached to a vehicle.

The Turnpike has increased rates seven times in 70 years, including two increases in the past year and a half. Tolls increased 25 percent in January 2009 and rose 3 percent at the start of 2010.

The Turnpike estimates the higher fees will generate about $35 million a year.