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.

Soon, turnpike toll booth workers will be a job of the past in Lawrence, as the turnpike will eliminate all toll booths as part of a cashless tolling system that begins July 1.

But Lawrence is set to have a whole new crop of turnpike jobs emerge. Lawrence has been chosen as a site for a new Kansas Turnpike Authority retail center, which also will house a call center for turnpike operations.

The new facility is slated to go into a vacant storefront in North Lawrence’s I-70 Business Center, which is just across the street from the current North Lawrence turnpike interchange. Work is underway in converting the office space — which is next door to the Journal-World offices at 1035 N. Third St. — into the new turnpike center.

Multiple individuals have confirmed the selection of the North Lawrence site as the new KTA location — plus, it has been kind of hard for us at the Journal-World to not notice the multitude of Turnpike Authority trucks and workers that are next door. I’m still waiting to hear official details from a turnpike spokesperson, whom I reached out to Thursday morning. Unofficially, I’ve heard the Lawrence space is being equipped to eventually house about 60 employees.

It sounds like some of those employees will be call center employees that will handle questions and customer service issues related to turnpike users. Other employees, seemingly, will be staffing the retail portion of the site.

What does the Turnpike Authority have to sell, you ask? First and foremost, KTags. Those are the transponders that stick on your windshield or dashboard that allow the Turnpike Authority to track how many miles you have traveled on its roads.

Those KTags will continue to be a big part of the turnpike system once the switch to cashless tolling begins. Essentially, KTag users have been doing cashless tolling all along. The whole point of the KTag is to allow motorists to avoid stopping at a toll booth.

With the new system, the Turnpike Authority will be urging turnpike users to get a KTag, but not requiring it. If you don’t have a KTag, sensors along the turnpike will capture your license plate information, and the Turnpike Authority will send you a bill based on your vehicle’s registration data.

KTag users also will get bills for their usage on the turnpike, but their bills will be cheaper. Come July 1, KTag users will receive a 50% discount on the toll rates versus motorists who don’t have the KTag. Currently, KTag users do receive a discount, but it is not that large. Current discounts generally range from 25% to 35%, depending on the size of your vehicle.

There are likely other tips motorists should know about the change to a cashless system. I’ll look to update this article with some of those tips when I hear back from the KTA spokesperson.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

A K-Tag scanner is pictured on the Kansas Turnpike on July 7, 2023.