be contested for this title in the future by I-369 in Texas. The tickets along the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike were originally handed out by person. In 1987, machines started to replace humans in distributing tickets. In 1990, an electronic toll collection system was proposed for the Pennsylvania Turnpike, where a motorist would create an account and use an electronic device that would be read from an electronic tollbooth. The motorist would be billed later. The multi-state electronic tolling system, which was to be called E-ZPass, was planned to be implemented by 1998. The planned installation date was later pushed back to 2000. On December 2, 2000, E-ZPass debuted along the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike between Mid-County and Lehigh Valley. On December 15, 2001, E-ZPass was extended to include the entire length of the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Commercial vehicles were allowed to start using E-ZPass on December 14, 2002. On November 24, 2004, the day before Thanksgiving, 2,000 Teamsters Union employees went on strike, after contract negotiations failed. This was the first strike in the history of the roadway. As this is usually one of the busiest traffic days in the US, to avoid traffic jams, tolls were waived for the rest of the day. Starting on November 25, turnpike management personnel collected flat-rate passenger tolls of $2 and commercial tolls of $15 from cash customers on the ticketed system, while E-ZPass customers were charged the lesser of the actual toll or the same flat rates. The strike ended after seven days when both sides reached an agreement on November 30, 2004. Normal toll collection resumed December 1, 2004. In 2007, the turnpike commission announced plans to widen the Northeast Extension to six lanes between Mid-County and Lansdale. The project divided this stretch of highway into two sections. Work on the southern section began in January 2008 with the replacement of two bridges over the Northeast Extension to accommodate the widened highway. Construction on the actual widening phase commenced in January 2011. Completion was originally planned in 2013; however, construction fell a year behind schedule. Construction on widening the northern section started in May 2014, while work on widening the southern section finished up in October of that year. By this point, the project scope was expanded to include the Lansdale interchange itself, the roadway to a point north of the interchange, and