ALBANY - Cashless tolling will come to the New York State Thruway by the end of 2020, Gov. Andrew Cuomo will pledge Wednesday.
Cuomo is set to use his annual State of the State address to call for the removal of traditional toll booths from the state's 570-mile superhighway, pledging to implement cashless tolling across the entire Thruway in the next three years.
The proposal will be unveiled by Cuomo in his agenda-setting address, according to a written version delivered to lawmakers.
Cuomo's speech is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center near the state Capitol.
This year's State of the State is Cuomo's eighth and is the last of his second term.
Under a cashless-tolling system, motorists drive through overhead toll gantries at full speed as cameras capture an image of their license plate.
E-ZPass users are charged immediately. For others, the owner of the vehicle receives a bill in the mail.
Cuomo has been a proponent of cashless tolling, pushing for its expansion at the former Tappan Zee Bridge -- now known as the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge -- and many New York City crossings.
"To expand these benefits across the state, Governor Cuomo plans to implement cashless tolling technology on all toll collection points across the New York State Thruway," Cuomo's office wrote in its written State of the State message delivered to lawmakers Wednesday.
Like previous years, Cuomo spent the weeks before his address methodically releasing his agenda in a slow drip, leaving few major announcements for the speech itself.
Each day, he publicly released new items, from proposals to boost the state's revenge pornography penalties and sexual-harassment laws, to plans to invest $34 million in Stewart Airport in Orange County and build a new 18,000-seat arena for the New York Islanders on Long Island.
The cashless-tolling announcement was an exception, with Cuomo saving it for his address.
There have been signs the Thruway Authority had been looking to expand the cashless system, with the authority's board adopting a budget last month identifying it as a priority for 2018.
The push to expand, however, has not been without hiccups.
In the Lower Hudson Valley, motorists have been hit with hundreds of dollars in late fees just after a few crossings on the former Tappan Zee, with some claiming they never received a bill in the first place.
Expanding the system to the entire Thruway, meanwhile, will likely come with hundreds of millions of dollars in upfront costs -- which caused some friction between Cuomo's office and the Thruway's previous leadership.
This year marked a return to practice for Cuomo's State of the State, returning to the convention center after instead delivering several regional addresses around the state last year.
This last time the speech was held in the convention center in Albany was 2016. That year, Cuomo was interrupted by Brooklyn Assemblyman Charles Barron, a Democrat protesting Cuomo's stance on school funding.
Barron is not expected to be in attendance Wednesday.
