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12/15/2003: "Run Like Hell"

A promise was made in the law establishing the Illinois tollway system back in 1953 to convert the new tollway into a freeway as soon as the initial costs were recouped. This bit of legislative bullshit establishing what is now the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority (ISTHA) follows:

(605 ILCS 10/1.1)
Sec. 1.1. Short title. This Act may be cited as the Toll Highway
Act.
(Source: P.A. 86-1324.)

(605 ILCS 10/21)
Sec. 21. When all bonds including refunding bonds and all interest
thereon have been paid, or a sufficient amount for the payment of all
bonds and interest due or accrued thereon has been set aside in trust
for the benefit of the bondholders and shall continue to be held for
that purpose, and when all money appropriated by the General Assembly
has been repaid as provided by Section 18 of this Act, the toll highways
and any connecting tunnels, bridges, approaches or other appurtenances
to such toll highways shall become a part of the system of the State
highways of the State of Illinois, and be maintained and operated free
of tolls.

Now, fifty years later, the tollway people owe $890 million, and tolls are viewed as a necessary evil. What a suprise! Were you born yesterday? Click more.. below.

The state toll authority has about $890 million of bonds outstanding, almost half of them 1992 bonds due in 2017. And the Toll Authority plans to issue huge numbers of additional bonds over the next ten years: $8 billion worth, split about equally between reconstruction and new roads. It seems, you see, that engineering consultants have concluded it would be most economical to completely rebuild the two-thirds of the Illinois tollway system constructed in 1956-58. Yet another big suprise! Gee, I wonder what they were doing in 1990-1992 when that section was under construction for a full two years? Maybe resealing?

ISTHA is expected to collect $370 million in tolls this year, and guys, that ain't shit. No less than 80 million of that is required for debt service alone, and that's at our current shabby $890 million debt level. How many suckers do you think they will find who will be willing to take out a loan just to pay the tolls to the airport? Think about it. What will it take to support an $8 billion debt? Ok, anything that stupid is smoke. Let's move on.

Former Illinois Governor George Ryan told journalists in late 1999 that he regarded tolls as a "nuisance" and wanted to greatly reduce, if not eliminate, the toll system in Illinois. Remember, Governor Ryan was the first Illinois governor smart enough to realize that the death penalty is a pretty permanent thing to hand over to the fuckups in the court system. He was right about that, so maybe he was right when he said he could do away with tolls with a few cents a gallon in gas tax and blah blah. But, alas, it wasn't to be. For some reason the Toll Authority just wants to keep all that money in their own hands, no matter how much trouble it is to keep track of, and Governor Blagojevich is on board all the way.

The new smoke screen is I-Pass. I-Pass works like an airplane transponder to ID your car as you blow through a tollgate at 50 mph, dodging confused lane-changing drivers from out of state looking under the seat for the dime they just dropped. The ID is then tracked to your credit card, and presto your toll is paid. Magic. My experience is, with only 40% use by tollway drivers, I-Pass is more dangerous than drunks and cellphones put together. Surely we'll save on toll takers. Nope, we will eat that up tracking people who drive through the I-Pass lanes without an I-Pass transponder, or pull away from a booth before the light turns green, standard operating procedure, setting off a digital camera. A company called TransCore now has a three-year, $38 million contract with the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority to be an ongoing and very expensive pain in the ass. What follows is from their press release. Read it and weep.

"Initially, TransCore will provide violation processing center operations from its Scottsdale, Ariz., facility while it builds out the infrastructure and establishes a permanent violation processing and call center in Lisle, Ill., which will include upwards of 70 dedicated staff. The center is expected to process more than 23 million transactions and issue 8.2 million toll violation notices during the first 30 months of operation. TransCore will monitor the ISTHA toll road system for current violations as well as review a backlog of images captured during the past two years to enforce prior violations."

Some results are in, NBC5 reports:

"Complaints surfaced after the Illinois Tollway launched its biggest crackdown ever, issuing $7 million in fines in the mail since January.

Jack Hartman, who took over this year as the head of the Illinois Tollway, said all alleged violators are allowed a hearing.

'Is it possible they could put the money in, go, and be considered a violator? Yes,' Hartman said. 'Part of the process is they have to stop.'

"Some hearing officers at the Illinois Tollway have ruled in favor of motorists who claimed they paid but didn't stop long enough to make sure it registered.

"Tollway officials say you have to wait until the light turns green when you throw in your money. If you don't wait until the light turns green, the new company hired to track down toll violators will consider you a toll cheat even though you paid. Hartman said if the light hasn't turned green after five seconds, most likely there's a jam and drivers who pass through during a jam shouldn't be flagged for a fine. The machines are supposed to be programmed not to count violators when there is a jam or malfunction.

"Tollway officials hope the hearing process weeds out the innocent from the guilty, but the fines are necessary to cut down on the real cheats."

My advice is put snow or mud (seasonal choice) on your rear plate and run like hell for the I-Pass lane. What have you got to lose?

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