Coal trucks use part of this route, though I have seen less of them in recent years. The exception, of course, is if you end up behind a slow car or truck for the entire route (there are no good passing zones). Since Cabin Creek Road parallels the turnpike, this bypass is the shortest of the three - it only adds about 5 minutes of travel time to the trip compared to staying on the highway and going through the toll plaza. The Cabin Creek bypass This is simply exiting at Chelyan and taking Cabin Creek Road to the Sharon exit, bypassing the first (northernmost) toll plaza. With that said, here are my own thoughts on the three WV Turnpike bypasses (listed in southbound order). The main reason I would use them before was that I rarely have cash on me, and the hassle of going to an ATM just for toll money is worse than the inconvenience of the added miles and minutes of the back roads. All it takes is one slow car or truck on those long back roads (there are no decent passing zones) to tip the time/convenience balance in favor of just staying on the highway and paying the toll. Not to mention that they may end up getting congested after the toll increase, now that everyone who didn't realize they were there does now. Now that I have a transponder, I doubt that I'll ever use the bypasses again. The third, the 'Ghent bypass', is much longer and is usually not worth the trouble to save the $1.25 or even the upcoming $2.00. The first two, what I call the 'Paint Creek bypass' and the 'Cabin Creek bypass', are ones I've used more often, since they do not add much travel time and mileage to the trip. There are three such 'bypasses' on the WV Turnpike that I have used occasionally if either I'm not in a hurry, or don't have any cash in the car for tolls. Turnpikes in most other states (like Oklahoma and Kansas) have mini-plazas at every entrance and exit, which prevent cars from bypassing the tolls like you can here in West Virginia. This means that each plaza can be bypassed (with varying degrees of inconvenience) by exiting the highway and using back roads. The WV turnpike differs from most others in that there are no toll booths at any of the the entrance or exit ramps (at Route 19 being the lone exception). Since exploring country roads is a pasttime of mine, I've known about these for years - so I thought it was amusing that they're now getting mentioned in the media. Thanks to some news articles this week, apparently the cat is now out of the bag about the Turnpike's 'bypasses', for those who don't already know about them. That's a no-brainer for just about anyone who uses the road more than a couple times a year. If you get the transponder, your toll only increases 5 cents per plaza to $1.30. Notwithstanding, getting an EZ Pass transponder will all but eliminate the increase for those who choose that route. It seems more fitting that those who are actually using the road pay their share for it. If it isn't tolls, it would be with taxes - so I guess we have to take our pick. My opinion? I have no problem at all with the increase - someone has to pay for the upkeep of the road. While I'm not a frequent user of the turnpike by any means (as in not a daily or weekly commuter), I do drive it many times per year for storms and weather (particularly in the winter to cover snow in the higher elevations around Beckley, Flat Top, Sandstone Mountain and Lewisburg). After the increase, that will rise to $6 (for the sake of brevity I won't describe in detail the North Beckley plaza at the Route 19 exit, which currently is 25 cents). There are three main plazas on the route, so the current price to travel the entire length one-way is $3.75 per car. In a couple of weeks (on August 1), the tolls on the West Virginia Turnpike will go from $1.25 per car per plaza to $2.00 per car per plaza.
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