photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

A Kansas Turnpike toll ticket booth in North Lawrence on July 7, 2023. The KTA will stop using booths to dispense tickets and take payments after changing to a new cashless system in 2024.

Demolition and lane configuration work at Lawrence-area toll plazas is set to begin this summer.

The Kansas Turnpike Authority announced in December 2023 that the construction will affect the existing toll plazas along Interstate 70 near Lawrence — at Lecompton, at U.S. Highway 59 in North Lawrence and at U.S. Highway 40, which becomes McDonald Drive as it enters the city. Two toll plazas further east of Lawrence — the Tonganoxie-Eudora and Eastern Terminal locations — are also part of the project.

The KTA is expecting construction will potentially take well over a year to complete once work begins on July 29. According to the KTA, the project will be completed between then and Nov. 14, 2025. The contract was awarded to King’s Construction of Oskaloosa for a $2,773,770 bid.

Per the KTA, construction details will be available closer to the project’s start date on the agency’s website.

This won’t be the only significant change coming to the turnpike this year. As the Journal-World has reported, the KTA is making the switch to a cashless tolling system for all drivers on the turnpike — which runs on I-70 from the Kansas City area to Topeka, then down I-335 to Wichita — this year, the same month that construction at toll plazas is set to begin. Under the new system, drivers’ license plates will be scanned and a bill will be sent to them in the mail, much in the same way that the agency’s optional K-Tag system works.