Caution: Drivers Leaving Michigan Southbound May Travel America’s Most Expensive Toll Roads

Michigan drivers are generally not very familiar with the concept of toll roads. Toll bridge - perhaps yes, after all the Mackinac and all bridges to Canada are tolled - but long toll roads are just not how the state chooses to fund its roads. But travelling just south of Michigan, and you may be on America's most expansive and expensive toll roads.

Between Chicago and New York travelers will find an almost endless series of tolled highways. Leaving Chicago on the Skyway (a road that kind of, sort of is Interstate 90) through the Indiana Toll Road to Ohio Turnpike and the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Leaving Michigan either on I-69 south of Coldwater or I-75 at Toledo to Interstate 80/90 and you're entering that expensive toll road network.

Someone did the math (as of 2024) and found the most expensive toll roads in the nation. The Ohio Turnpike costs $20.50 to cross the state and meet up with the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The roadway across the Keystone State is far and away the most expensive roadway in the nation. A drive across Pennsylvania is $112.91. Wow!

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The Pennsylvania Turnpike ends just north of Philly. So entering at I-80/90 at the Ohio Turnpike's westpoint which is 5 miles south of the Michigan/Ohio line where M-49 becomes Ohio Route 49 south of Camden, and driving the full length of both turnpikes would cost 113.41 to reach the Delaware River.

Diverting off the Ohio Turnpike at Cleveland and making a trip northeast along the Lake Erie coast past Ashtabula, across the Pennsylvania state line to Erie leads straight to the New York State Thruway, the nation's 2nd most expensive roadway to drive. From the western line of the Empire State at Ripley through Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica and Albany down the Hudson Valley to the Bronx, the 496 miles NYS Thruway costs $28.05 to drive.

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So Michigan drivers who venture out of state, consider investing in an EZ-Pass to zip through those toll roads.