Tolls on the Kansas Turnpike will increase an average of 5 percent Aug. 1, the Turnpike Commission announced recently.

The commission said the increase was necessary to “maintain sound financial condition while preparing for future capital needs.”

Those “capital needs” include an extra lane in each direction between the Kansas City metropolitan area, which the commission estimates will cost $92 million, and a group of projects around Lawrence, KS, which sits along that stretch of the highway. The Lawrence projects, which are estimated at $125 million, include new bridges over the Kansas River and two new interchanges. It is scheduled for completion in 2012.

The increase will be the seventh in the 50-year history of the turnpike, according to Lisa Callahan, a turnpike spokeswoman. The last increase was in 2001.

Five-axle 18-wheelers running the full length of the turnpike now pay $24.40; after the increase, they will pay $25.75. Callahan said turnpike officials don’t foresee any decrease in truck traffic after prices go up.

“It’s a small, 5 percent increase,” she said. “We purposely kept it small to make it easier to take.”

That’s far less than other toll increases truckers have faced in recent years in other parts of the country.

On the same day Kansas’ tolls go up, truckers driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike will begin to pay a 40 percent increase in their tolls. The increase in Pennsylvania alone – roughly $45 – is nearly double the total toll amount in Kansas after the increase.

Tolls have also increased on many East Coast bridges, such as those crossing the Delaware River between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Some of those bridges saw an increase of nearly 275 percent for trucks. At one time, the commission that oversees the bridges sought an even higher 300-plus percent increase.

The Kansas Turnpike runs 236 miles from Kansas City east to Topeka, the state capital, and then southwest to Wichita, Kansas’ largest city, before ending just north of the Oklahoma border.

The highway was built by the state as a toll road in 1955 and 1956, and was later given interstate designations. The stretch from Kansas City, KS, to Topeka is part of I-70; from Topeka to Emporia, it is I-335; from Emporia to Oklahoma, it is I-35.

Drivers receive a ticket when they enter the turnpike, and pay toll based on the number of miles they ran on the highway when they exit. An electronic toll-collection system called K-Tag was installed at the highway’s 21 interchanges in 1995 and is now used by 170,000 vehicles.

by Mark H. Reddig, associate editor

Mark Reddig can be reached at mark_reddig@landlinemag.com.