Chiefs’ Champions Tour stopping in Topeka: Here’s what to know
14 July 2023
LAWRENCE, Kan. — The stress of fumbling through car seats and searching for loose change to pay a toll will soon be a true thing of the past on the Kansas Turnpike.
One year from the now, the turnpike is not only going cashless but also ticketless for drivers passing through.
The Kansas Turnpike Authority is set to roll out license plate scanners, a system that will send bills through the mail instead of making people pay up on the road.
At the Mile 209 food and gas “island,” truckers and travelers said their days of stocking up on change for a road trip are long behind them.
“I haven’t been to Colorado in 30 years so, I did not realize that this was toll road here,” traveler Shirley Stenberg said.
“Our first trip through the toll booth was when my 4-year-old was a newborn on the way to the hospital in Kansas City,” said Erin Hernandez, traveling with a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old.
“Since then, I think it’s just part of the scenery,” Hernandez said.
Already the human element of the toll booth has been greatly scaled back with regular drivers mostly relying on their automatic KTAGs.
But next summer, even people without a KTAG won’t have to stop.
“Rather than put a large investment into that cash collection equipment, we really started talking about cashless tolling,” said Rachel Bell, director of business services and customer relations for the Kansas Turnpike Authority.
Although they’re not “live,” the Kansas Turnpike Authority has already installed some of the cameras/sensors to prepare for the switch in one year, Bell said.
“There will be an image taken of your license plate, and that image is associated with your vehicle registration information. We then turn around and bill that driver on the registration for a toll,” Bell said.
KTAG users will still have their own system, paying 30% less than the people who are billed through mail (and that doesn’t even include the price of postage).
As for the toll booths, set to be removed later on, some feel the loss of an aesthetic: a piece of road trip Americana.
“But as someone who just likes nostalgia and is just wistful about traveling and taking a road trip and maybe going on Route 66, it kind of makes me sad that we don’t have that anymore in the near future,” Hernandez said.
The Kansas Turnpike Authority actually announced this change back in 2020, but it was put on hold because of the pandemic, resulting in this new timeline.