Infrastructure

NO FREE RIDE

Closing the stated toll booths would make life cheaper for
some commuters, but would add costs for all Illinois drivers

Analysis by Jon Marshall

Taking a sledgehammer to the 64 toll plazas and baskets around the Chicago area would warm the hearts of many drivers. More than one commuter stuck idling at these plazas has dreamed of doing similar violence to the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, the quasi-public agency that runs the tollways.

Indeed, proposals to put the toll authority under stricter legislative control — or abolish it altogether — got a jump-start last year in Springfield when a judge ruled the agency's budget needs legislative oversight. The Illinois Supreme Court overturned that ruling, and the legislative proposals appear caught in the slow lane. Still, because the issue isn't likely to go away, it's worth considering what might happen if frustrated Chicago- area commuters got their wish and the toll authority vanished.

The short answer: There's no free ride. Closing the state's toll booths would make life easier and cheaper for some commuters, but would add costs for all Illinois drivers.

For starters, the end of an independent toll system would likely mean higher state gas taxes and bumpier roads throughout the state. And it would likely halt the building of new highways in Illinois for years to come. The bottom line: The population growth of the counties surrounding Chicago would slow as no new major roads are built into the fringes of the region.

The toll authority operates four roads in the northeastern region of the state: the East-West, the North-South, the Northwest and the Tri-State toll- ways. On an average day, 1.2 million vehicles use the authority's 273 miles of roads. (That doesn't count the Chicago Skyway, which the city operates.)

Freeing up these tollways would run counter to a national trend to use tolls instead of taxes to pay for roads, according to Neil Schuster, executive director of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association. In recent years, new toll roads have opened in the Atlanta, Dallas, Orange County, Calif., and Washington, D.C., areas. As of last year, 23 states had tolls on roads, and eight states are building new ones, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

That doesn't mean states can't remove tolls. Connecticut eliminated all of its tolls in the 1980s after an accident at a toll plaza killed seven people. But Connecticut's system was less than half the size of Illinois' and, because most of the bonds had been paid off, the move had little impact on that state's finances.

Once upon a time, Illinois' toll roads were also supposed to disappear. The 1953 law creating the State Toll Highway Commission — later called the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority — stipulated that each toll road would become a freeway once its bonds were retired. But after the toll authority completed the original three legs of its system, the legislature gave it more work to do. In the 1970s, the agency extended the East-West from Aurora to Rock Falls; in the late 1980s, it built the North-South; and in the 1990s, it widened the central part of the Tri-State.

As the toll system grew, the promise to make it free vanished. In 1984 the legislature rewrote the original law so the agency could use the hearty surpluses from tolls on existing roads to build new ones. "You used to only pay for the road you are driving on," says Michael Truppa of the Chicago- based Environmental Law & Policy Center. "That has been reduced to a fiction."

In fact, by the 1990s, the toll authority had become a political juggernaut. Developers and contractors were getting rich, and patronage was keeping politicians happy. Ultimately, the agency crashed headfirst into scandal. In 1994 the public learned that some toll authority employees were getting double pensions and that 2,000 politicians, agency administrators and their buddies were using free passes to avoid tolls. That same year Robert Hickman, the agency's executive director, resigned after being accused of steering contracts to a firm that hired his son and using the toll authority's helicopter for private trips to Springfield. Hickman was later convicted of profiting from a toll authority land deal.

Since then, new Executive Director Ralph Wehner and Chairman Julian D'Esposito have worked hard to clean up the agency's image, winning points from even the most dedicated toll authority bashers. The agency also took on the sensitive and expensive tasks — handed to them by the legislature — of completing the outer ring of suburban roads. It is planning to extend the North-South Tollway (Interstate 355) through Will County from the Stevenson Expressway to Interstate 80, at an estimated cost of $710 million. And it is considering an extension of Route 53 through Lake

40 / May 1998 Illinois Issues

County for approximately $1.2 billion.

But work on both proposed extensions is on hold following a U.S. District Court judge's ruling last year that the toll authority didn't fully consider possible alternatives when preparing an environmental impact statement for the 1-355 extension. The case is now before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The loudest opposition to the toll authority is brewing in the Chicago suburbs, where some residents worry about the impact of toll roads on the environment, and commuters complain they are the only drivers in Illinois who have to pay twice for the privilege of using roads. State Rep. Cal Skinner Jr., a Crystal Lake Republican, argues suburban drivers pay state gas taxes like everyone else on top of user fees that go toward extending other parts of the tollway system.

Toll authority critics have introduced a series of bills designed to harness the agency, including one submitted last year to turn toll roads into freeways and put them under the Illinois Department of Transportation's jurisdiction.

"People shouldn't have access to free roads in some areas, while people in other areas have to pay," says one sponsor, state Rep. Lauren Beth Gash, a Highland Park Democrat.

Getting rid of the toll authority would certainly save on overhead costs. The agency's palatial headquarters in Downers Grove could be sold and administrative costs eliminated. The toll authority's small army of lobbyists, lawyers and public relations consultants could be furloughed. And drivers would no longer have to cover the costs of operating the toll booths, saving roughly $60 million a year.

But that leaves plenty of costs Illinois taxpayers would have to absorb. The toll authority spends roughly $78 million a year paying off its bonds, which aren't due to expire until 2017. If the Route 53 and 1-355 extensions are approved, that debt burden would likely more than double. Bondholders would probably jack up interest rates if the state took responsibility for this debt, further increasing the cost to taxpayers. There's also the expense of maintaining the toll authority's four existing roads, which in 1997 totaled about $45 million. In addition, the toll authority has been setting aside about $110 million a year for such long-term improvements as fixing bridges and resurfacing lanes. Under its current budget, the state can't handle that load, Department of Transportation Secretary Kirk Brown says. The department already has a backlog of 2,600 miles of roads it can't repair, he says. Taking care of the toll roads would double this backlog, forcing drivers to wait even longer to get cracks repaired and lanes widened. "It would be a devastating blow to our highway system," Brown says.

If the toll authority disappears, Illinois would have to collect more money — most likely through a hike in gas taxes or license fees — or live with constantly deteriorating roads. Absorbing the repair, resurfacing and bond payments for the existing toll system would cost the state around $233 million a year, equal to approximately a 4.6-cent hike in gas taxes. If the state decided to pay for the 1-355 and Route 53 extensions, the cost would be even higher.

Any gas-tax increase would be about as popular as the Bulls trading Michael Jordan to the Knicks, especially among downstate and Chicago voters who usually don't have to pay tolls. Illinois drivers already pay 38.7 cents per gallon (plus 5 cents more within Chicago) in state, federal and local gas taxes. In addition, sales taxes boost the price we pay at the pump by roughly 7 percent, according to the Illinois Petroleum Council.

But the true legacy of abolishing the toll authority would amount to more than a few pennies in gas taxes. Without the steady flow of money from tolls, Illinois will not be able to afford to build any major new roads in the foreseeable future.

In addition to the Route 53 and 1-355 extensions, the toll authority is studying a possible bypass along the west side of O'Hare International Airport and is identifying potential routes to connect the 1-355 extension to Interstate 57, Without the income from tolls, these roads will remain on the drawing board for a long time. 

Jon Marshall writes extensively about transportation issues. His last article for Illinois Issues, "Political Crossroads," which appeared in February, examined the future of the Chicago region's mass transit system.

Illinois Issues May 1998 / 41