The World’s Most Expensive Toll Road Is Right Here In America

There are toll roads all over the world. In the United States alone more than 35 states have toll roads which require drivers to pay a fee to use them. The use of toll roads varies around the world, and they come in all different forms, whether it’s a one-off payment or an amount that’s charged depending on how far you travel.

So an Australian insurance company called Budget Direct decided to put together a report of the most expensive toll roads from around the world.

It found that Switzerland is home to the most expensive average toll price, however, the most expensive toll road overall is right here in America. It’s the Pennsylvania Turnpike and for good reason.

According to the turnpike’s toll calculator, drivers pay a whopping $112.90, which is around $0.26 per mile. Granted, the cost drops by more than half if drivers use an E-ZPass for payment, not everyone chooses to use this method since currently only 19 states accept it as payment. You can find the top 15 most expensive U.S. tolls below:

On the other hand, the cheapest toll in America is the Boulevard Bridge, or the ‘nickel bridge’ in Richmond, VA coming in at $0.35.

If you look at it from a global perspective, driving the Pennsylvania Turnpike (in its entirety) is almost 2.5 times as expensive as its closest rival, which is the Grossglockner High Alpine in Austria.

If you’re wondering why it’s so expensive, it essentially falls on politics and plans that fell through. In 2007, Pennsylvania had plans to build another toll road on I-80 using a federal program called the Interstate System Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Pilot Program.

With this in mind, former state governor Ed Rendell banked on a new source of income for statewide roads. He also had planned for the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) to take over maintenance and responsibility for I-80.

As it turns out, the application to place tolls on I-80 was rejected three times. This left That left the PTC on the hook for the $450 million left in annual payments. To cover this cost, tolls were increased gradually from around $0.08 per mile to around $0.26 per mile.