For those who spend much of their time traveling to and from work, the days of waiting in line to pay your toll soon will be a thing of the past.

However, for nearly 600 Pennsylvania Turnpike workers depending on those positions to feed their families, put a roof over their head and send their kids to college, the happy dance might not be coming anytime too soon.

We applaud the turnpike commission for not just jumping on the bandwagon and barreling forward with the conversion to a cashless tolling system without at least a measure of planning and thought. Leaders reviewed all the options and even piloted the program in two areas for a full year before making their final decision to move from manned toll booths to automated.

The turnpike commission even offered to cover career retraining and education costs for workers impacted by the proposed change — allowing for up to $5,250 per year in tuition reimbursement for booth employees for the last several years. In essence, while never officially telling workers the writing was on the wall, it definitely sounds like turnpike commission officials gave more than enough hints.

As part of the $129 million project, toll plazas and toll booths along the turnpike’s 552 miles will be decommissioned and demolished. Erected in their place will be all-electronic tolling (AET) overhead steel structures that already exist at some points along the highway.

The project is expected to be completed in the fall of 2021.

Sure, all this automation may make our lives a little easier — maybe it shaves 15 minutes of our commute time, maybe it means we don’t have to fish around for that extra 15 cents at the toll booth, maybe we no longer need to pause our Bluetooth just long enough to mumble “Thanks” to the toll booth worker handing us change.

But at what point to do we, as a society that is growing increasingly insular, question how little of a thing is too little of a thing.

These days, we are so consumed with making our lives easier that we forget those important lessons learned in simple human interactions.

At fast-food restaurants, all you need to do today is order online, “tap the app” and jump to the front of the line. At grocery stores, you can order and pay from the comfort of home in your favorite PJs, hop in the car and have your bags and boxes loaded without ever stepping foot in the parking lot, fighting for a spot or spending a split-second inside a store.

Whatever happened to human contact and small talk and chit chat with people in line at the restaurant or grocery store? How will you know which cut of meat goes best with which pasta? What happens if you’re lost on the turnpike? Who will be there to ask, or even tell you the best locale to grab a bite to eat?

Fret not, surely there’s an app for that.