Some Support Toll Hike If It Puts People Back To Work
SCHAUMBURG, Ill. (CBS) -- A few people say they will go along with higher tolls if it puts them back to work.
As CBS 2's David Morrison reports, more than 100 people turned out for a meeting on the Illinois Toll Highway Authority's $12 billion capital construction plan, called Move Illinois, at the Schaumburg Prairie Center for the Arts, 201 Schaumburg Ct.
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The 15-year expansion plan would be paid for partially by tollway users – 35 cents more for I-Pass customers, and 70 cents for cash payers.
Many union workers, engineers and others that support the plan say the promised 120,000 jobs is definitely needed. The Chicago Tribune reports some of those jobs will last 10 years.
But opponents said the toll hike will cramp their already tight budgets, the Tribune reported.
Some were concerned over the hefty increases, but as at the Schaumburg meeting, a majority of the speakers – well-represented by engineers and union building trades – favored the huge tollway plan.
Revenue from the toll hike would pay for a number of new projects: reconstruction of the Jane Addams Tollway, reconstruction I-90 from O'Hare International Airport to Rockford for the first time in 50 years, construction of a south suburban interchange between I-294 and I-57 and construction of an additional leg of the Elgin-O'Hare Expressway that still connects neither Elgin nor O'Hare.
