It’s been a long trip, but we have finally ended up where we started. It’s time to build an open road tolling facility on the Maine Turnpike at a new location in York.

This is the inescapable conclusion of studies that stretch back almost a decade, including exhaustive attempts to work with neighbors who want to keep the tollbooth where it is. The latest consultant to review it, Jacobs Engineering, has come to findings that should now sound familiar.

The current toll plaza, at the bottom of a hill in the center of a curve and sinking into a wetland is the wrong place for the facility. Jacobs determined that a new plaza could be built there, but at a heavy price.

A new toll plaza a mile and a half north of the current facility could be built for $40 million. Building in the current location would cost $60 million. A 50 percent premium might be worth the investment if the result would be a better facility, but it would not. The better site is also the least expensive option, which is good news for the people who pay tolls and the people who drive the turnpike or the bridges that cross it — even if it’s not necessarily good news for all the people who live near the highway.

The Maine Turnpike Authority is right to consider the neighbors’ concerns, but ultimately this is an issue of statewide importance.

The Maine Turnpike’s York toll plaza is one of the most important pieces of transportation infrastructure in the state. It collects $54 million in revenue each year, more than 40 percent of the gross revenue of the entire highway. It is the primary entry point for millions of tourists who come into the state each year.

The facility was built in 1969, when it served 5 million vehicles a year. Now it handles 16 million, and the turnpike authority cannot take advantage of the new technology to keep the traffic moving while still collecting revenue.

If you want to see how that would work, you would only need to take a short drive south of Maine’s border with New Hampshire to the open road tolling facility in Hampton. There, vehicles that pay cash for tolls are diverted to the right side, where there are manned tollbooths. But drivers with E-ZPass accounts stay on the highway without slowing down. For those drivers — who include the majority of Mainers who use the turnpike — it’s like having no tollbooth at all.

That’s the kind of system the Maine Turnpike needs.

Studies of the York toll plaza began in 2005. The Maine Turnpike Authority trustees should look at all that’s been learned and finally approve a plan to move the toll plaza.