The Environmental Law and Policy Center has begun a campaign to take the tolls out of the tollway system.
This naively assumes that the tollway can pay off its debt from some other source and that roads in some way maintain themselves. Unfortunately, the reality is that tolls pay for both debt and maintenance of the tollway system.
If tolls are eliminated, will the burden of maintenance fall upon the financially strapped Illinois Department of Transportation, which is having a difficult time maintaining its own system, much less adding almost 300 miles of superhighway to its maintenance program? Should the tollway default on its debt payments like the Chicago Skyway?
With congestion increasing on our highways, does anyone seriously think we are better able to meet the transportation challenges in our region with a weakened or defunct tollway system? For those who wish to object to the operations of the Illinois Tollway system, let them take their immediate “tax credit” and not use the tollways.
For those who wish to use the system, let them pay their fair share. Financing the operation and maintenance of transportation systems based on user fees (tolls) is a necessary and important step in allocating governmental costs to those who use these services.
