ILLINOIS STATE TOLL HIGHWAY AUTHORITY

The 'Illinois State Toll Highway Authority' is an instrumentality and administrative agency of the State of Illinois. The Tollway is governed by an 11-member board of directors. The Governor of the State of Illinois and the head of the Illinois Department of Transportation serve as ex officio members of the Tollway Board. The remaining 9 members are named by the Governor. No more than 5 appointed members may be of the same political party as the Governor. The Authority has the power to collect and raise tolls, and is responsible for the maintenance and construction of tollway roads and related signage (including electronic message boards, used for driving time notices, Amber Alerts and other notifications). The Tollway also supervises and manages the seven Illinois Tollway oases.
The roads, as well as the Authority itself, are sometimes referred to as the 'Illinois Tollway'. In reports on the Authority in the press, such as those by the ''Chicago Sun-Times'', ''Chicago Tribune'' and the ''Daily Herald'', the Authority's full name is used. On some of the Authority's signage, and in letters to the editor, "Illinois Tollway" is used. The Authority's official website uses both.

Contents

History

Toll roads

I-PASS

Criticism

Recent projects

References

External links

History

The original Toll Highway Authority was established in 1941.^[1] After construction of the first toll highways in Illinois was delayed by World War II, the Illinois State Toll Highway Commission was established in 1953. The first toll highways in the Chicago area were planned, constructed simultaneously, and finally opened in 1958 under the authority of this Commission.^[2] These first three toll highways are the present day Northwest Tollway (I-90), the Tri-State Tollway (I-94/I-294) and the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway (I-88). The Toll Highway Act, in its present form, dates from 1967, but has been amended since.^[3]
The Illinois State Toll Highways are the only toll highways within the United States that accept pennies for toll payment in automatic toll lanes. The reason commonly given for this is that Abraham Lincoln appears on the obverse of the US 1 cent piece, the penny, and Illinois is known as the "Land of Lincoln."

Toll roads

ISTHA manages four toll routes in Illinois. Except for the vicinity of O'Hare International Airport, none enter the city of Chicago, by design.

★ Northwest Tollway (I-90)

★ North-South Tollway (I-355)

★ Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway (I-88)

★ Tri-State Tollway (I94/I-294)

I-PASS

I-PASS is the Illinois Tollway’s electronic toll collection system that allows drivers to pre-pay their tolls to save time and money on the road. Every toll lane on the system is equipped to accept I-PASS which can also be used on the Chicago Skyway and anywhere E-ZPass is accepted (mostly East Coast)
A refundable deposit of $10 and $40 in pre-paid tolls is charged at the time of purchase. Illinois Tollway offers an auto-pay replenishment option by registering a credit or debit card to your I-PASS account at the time of activation. Each month, the minimum balance and replenishment amounts are recalculated based on the average usage during the previous six months.
Users choosing to replenish their account without auto-pay, they are responsible for monitoring their transactions and balance. There are various options for self-pay replenishment. Buying $20 I-PASS Gift Cards at Jewel-Osco is the most convenient way for those customers wishing to pay by check or cash.
If a vehicle registered with I-PASS passes through a toll collection without the transponder, the toll amount will be automatically deducted from the respective I-PASS account. This process is called "V-Tolls" (Video Tolls). V-Tolls in excess of 10 per month result in penalties.

Criticism

The ISTHA and the Toll Highway System in Illinois have undergone much criticism since the 1980s. Construction of the North-South Tollway (I-355) was delayed, in part, due to a dispute with the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois. Original plans for this toll highway would have seen it constructed through the middle of land belonging to the Arboretum, and closer to the existing Illinois Route 53.
Today I-355 is a major artery serving some of the fastest growing communities in the United States. Expected to be completed in 2007, the Tollway is currently building a 12.5 mile extenstion of I-355 which will link I-55 to I-80, providing access and critical congestion relief to interstate travelers and central Illinois. Construction in the I-355 extension began after years of delays. Construction on other projects has also been delayed, mostly through protests by area residents.
The Tollway Authority located its headquarters at the intersection of Interstates 88 and 355, in Downers Grove, Illinois in a helipad-equipped facility derisively nicknamed by press and politicians as the "Taj Mahal".^[4] Visitors to the building are greeted by marble flooring and other niceties. One particularly scandalous story related how every employee rated $700 Herman Miller Aeron desk chairs, which most companies reserve for either the top echelons, or those with back problems.
Further criticism in the 80's and 90's has centered on the existence of the ISTHA itself, and its quasi-independent status from even the Illinois General Assembly. Citizens' groups formed in the 1990s to try to force the ISTHA to disband, and convert the toll highways in Illinois into freeways. This stems from the 1953 law that established the then Illinois State Toll Highway Commission.^[5] By 1999, then-Governor George Ryan began to publicly discuss the closure of the ISTHA and the abolition of toll collection in Illinois,^[6] but the plans were tabled by Ryan's increasing scandals.^[7] After Ryan declined to run for re-election and present Governor Rod Blagojevich had been elected (but had not yet taken office), the ISTHA board publicly suggested a sudden hike in toll rates that the new Governor could simply blame on his outgoing predecessor. The last adjustment to Illinois toll rates took place in 1983.^[8] The Authority would have been able to raise rates at that time without approval of the Illinois General Assembly because of its quasi-independent nature. However, a rate hike did not go into effect at that time. Ultimately, the toll rates for I-PASS users remained at 1983 prices while the toll rate for cash payers doubled.
Other criticism has involved the use of the I-Pass transponder system. Some of this criticism has come from privacy advocates, who decry the use of tracking transponders.^[9][10] Other I-Pass related criticism came in late 2004, when toll hikes were proposed for drivers who do not use the system. Tolls were doubled for non-I-Pass users as of 1 January 2005.^[11]
Tolls were also raised on that date for drivers of larger vehicles. Under the congestion relief strategy, creating financial incentives for commercial and interstate truckers to use the tollways at non-peak travel times would reduce delays for daily commuters. Tractor-trailer drivers now have to pay increased rates during peak travel times (generally daytime hours during weekdays), but may pay decreased rates during non-peak travel times (though these rates are still an increase over those that were in effect until 1 January 2005). Some drivers had threatened court action or boycotts of the toll highway system.
The tollway also increases the amount of pollution from vehicle exhaust that enters the air. This is because the tollway adds to the amount of time that certain vehicles spend on the roadway by requiring them to slow down, stop, and sometimes idle for several minutes while waiting to pay their tolls. The introduction of the I-Pass system has greatly alleviated this problem, but it remains nonetheless.

Recent projects

In addition to the I-355 extension project begun in 2005, a second series of construction projects began in 2006. Their goals are to rebuild the all 20 of the mainline toll plazas on all four toll roads, upgrade several areas with additional lanes and wider lanes and rebuild and restore most of the system. The Authority's "Open Road Tolling" is an extension of previous "I-Pass Express Lanes," making use of the state's electronic toll payment transponder system. The previous lanes only allowed speeds of 15 miles per hour to 30 miles per hour (approx. 24 and 48 km/h). The newer system reads I-Pass transponders and deducts the toll from the user's account while the driver travels at speeds up to 65 mph (approx 105 km/h) though the open plaza. Drivers paying cash will need to pull off to a manned booth to pay their toll.^[12]

References

1. "Streets and Highways." Young, D. M. ''Encyclopedia of Chicago''. Accessed December 26, 2005.
2. "Interactive Regional Highway Atlas: System Facilities." University of Illinois at Chicago Library. Accessed December 26, 2005.
3. "Roads and Bridges." (605 ILCS 10/) Toll Highway Act. ISTHA site.
4. "Gov. Blagojevich's Budget Address — FY 2004." Office of the Governor of Illinois. April 9, 2003.
5. "Run Like Hell," with text from the 1953 Toll Highway Act. "Cliff's Notes." Accessed December 27, 2005.
6. Google cached copy of a message to the Environmental Law Policy Center, copying an article from the Daily Herald. Accessed 12 July 2006.
7. "Putting Customers in the Driver's Seat: The Case for Tolls." The Reason Foundation. Accessed December 27, 2005.
8. "An Agency Ripe for Reform: The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority." Citizen Advocacy Center. Spring 2002 Newsletter. Accessed December 27, 2005.
9. "Looking down the road: Transport informatics and the new landscape of privacy issues" reprinted on the Electronic Frontier Foundation website, originally published in 1995.
10. Toll Roads News article from 2005.
11. Article from the ''Chicago Fed Letter'', April 2006
12. Illinois State Toll Highway Authority. Illinois Tollway - Open Roads for a Faster Future. Accessed 2006 December 27.

External links

★ Official Site.