Tollway Officials Expect Complaints Over Plans To Double Tolls
DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. (CBS) -- Illinois Tollway officials expect complaints at a series of public hearing this month on a plan to double tolls for a $12 billion capital construction plan.
As CBS 2's Kris Habermehl reports, Illinois Tollway officials hope to convince drivers that nearly doubling tolls will be worth it. But they are expecting a lot of grousing and complaining at a series of public hearings this month.
The capital plan is intended to fund improvements on the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway (I-90). There are also plans to extend the Elgin-O'Hare Expressway, which as of now reaches neither Elgin nor O'Hare, and that project will turn the expressway into a tollway.
Under the plans, tolls would nearly double for I-Pass users, and go up for all tollway drivers in the 15-year plan approved by the Toll Highway Authority board.
But some have complained the size of the toll hike was a complete surprise. Toll Highway Authority chair Paula Wolff doesn't deny it.
"That's a fair comment," she said on WBBM Newsradio's "At Issue" program. "I don't think that we did have a full discussion of the amount of the increase. That's what the purpose of the public hearings actually is."
But Toll Highway officials say the higher tolls are needed to maintain the system and move it forward.
