PA Service Plazas | PA Turnpike (2024)

FAQs

How many rest stops are on the PA Turnpike? ›

There are 17 service plazas located along the PA Turnpike to meet travelers' needs. These easy-on, easy-off plazas are open 24 hours a day and offer fuel, restrooms, a variety of food options, and other amenities to make travel comfortable and efficient.

Service Plazas

The plazas are open 24 hours per day and offer a variety of fast-food options, fuel, restrooms, and other amenities. There are seasonal outdoor Farmers Markets located at the New Stanton, Allentown, and Sideling Hill Service Plazas.

Pennsylvania: Parking is allowed for 2 hours in a 24-hour period for rest areas managed by PennDOT; overnight parking is allowed for 24 hours at service plazas and areas managed by the state's Turnpike commission.

Those are gantries, and they are part of the next big thing at the PA Turnpike – Open Road Tolling. Open Road Tolling is an immense project, covering all 564 miles of the Turnpike, so it had to be broken down into several phases with several contractors performing the design and construction work.

When the Pennsylvania Turnpike opened in 1940, it was known as the "Tunnel Highway" because it traversed seven tunnels: from east to west, Blue Mountain, Kittatinny Mountain, Tuscarora Mountain, Sideling Hill, Rays Hill, Allegheny Mountain, and Laurel Hill.

There are no tents allowed, but you can get some sleep if you need to. of course, you'd be more comfortable in an RV. Remember this is only at service areas run by the PA Turnpike Commission.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission owns the land, buildings, and facili- ties at its current 22 service plaza locations. The Commission leases these proper- ties to operators who become the sole providers of service at these locations.

In the US, we also call rest stops rest areas, service areas, or travel plazas, while in Britain they're called motorway service areas or lay-bys.

Designated rest areas, campgrounds, and certain truck stops in Pennsylvania are considered safe and legal places to sleep in your car. These locations typically have facilities and security measures in place to accommodate overnight stays.

Can I go through E-ZPass without my transponder PA? ›

Yes. The PA Turnpike Commission's All-Electronic Tolling (AET) system will take images of all license plates regardless of the state registration that are not equipped with a valid E‑ZPass transponder. A Toll By Plate (TBP) invoice will be mailed to the vehicle's registered owner.

You can calculate how much a trip from destination to destination will cost by using the Turnpike's toll calculator, here. As pointed out in the Beaver County Times, a trip from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia would cost someone $34.70 using E-ZPass and $70.80 using the toll by plate option.

It was then decided that it was more economical to expand four of the tunnels with new tunnels and to bypass three tunnels that were built when the roadway was built. The project was completed in the late 1960s and thus caused a 13-mile stretch of the turnpike to essentially become abandoned.

In an ORT system, tolls are charged electronically as customers drive at highway speeds without slowing down or stopping beneath overhead structures — called gantries — located between interchanges.

An unbroken ribbon of concrete cutting through mountains and across valleys, bypassing towns. No stop signs, no intersections, no need to worry. The PA Turnpike was the first of its kind and received nationwide acclaim as an engineering marvel.

The turnpike's western terminus is located at the Ohio state line in Lawrence County, where the road continues west as the Ohio Turnpike. The eastern terminus is situated at the New Jersey state line at the Delaware River–Turnpike Toll Bridge, which crosses the Delaware River in Bucks County.

When prices go up on Jan. 7, 2024, the price to travel the full length of the mainline turnpike will be $107.90 without E-ZPass and $53.20 with E-ZPass. Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc.

These last three tunnels, along with a large travel plaza, encompassed 13 miles of the turnpike that was bypassed, and is known today as the Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike. This stretch of paved roadway has not gone unused in the last 40 years.