“Exact Coins” automated toll machines on State Road 408 and other Central Florida Expressway roads are being retired. The expressway authority is removing its automated toll takers throughout its network because they are wearing out and irreplaceable. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)

Will anyone remember telephones wired to homes, news inked on broad sheets of paper and motorists tossing coins at toll machines?

Of the three, giving way to digital alternatives, one is set for local extinction soon.

The ritual of feeding exact change into a basket at toll booths has been scheduled for retirement within two years. The Central Florida Expressway Authority will pull out all 96 automated toll machines throughout its 125-mile system.

“On CFX’s system, 4 percent of revenue is coming through cash today and the number continues to dwindle,” said Jim Greer, the authority’s chief of technology and operations. It’s actually 3.7 percent of annual toll revenues approaching a half-billion dollars.

Human toll collectors will remain in their booths. Other forms of payment – via a variety of transponder methods and through a system that captures license plate numbers and mails a bill to the driver – are expected to eventually monopolize toll taking.

Officially, the coin machines are “end of life and unsupported by manufacturer,” and they have a “high maintenance requirement,” the authority said in public presentation.

“We are starting to get low on critical parts,” Greer added.

Exact change toll machines are made for coins, but here are some of the items that have been recovered from the automated toll takers in Central Florida. (CFX)

The machines come in two sizes, 55 inches or 103 inches tall, and cost about $80,000 each. The yearly maintenance bill for each is about $25,000.

The phasing out will begin next year with removal of 26 coin machines from main toll plazas and continue in 2024 with the elimination of 70 from ramps accessing expressways.

The toll authorities of Miami and Tampa Bay have already made the move, Greer said, following a trend visible across the nation. The Poinciana Parkway in Osceola and the Wekiva Parkway in Orange and Lake counties do not have any lanes for cash tolls.

Also contributing to their downfall, automated coin machines, which click and whirr mysteriously, have been objects of disregard.

Perhaps carelessly or potentially on purpose, drivers have flung the flotsam and jetsam of their vehicles into toll baskets.

Technicians have fished or pried out bottle caps, batteries, paper clips, shotgun shells, fish hooks, nuts, bolts, razor blades and more.

Those are the items appropriate for mentioning in public, Greer said.