More traffic or more tolls?
Though village officials in Palatine, Schaumburg and Hoffman Estates aren`t keen on the idea of charging more tolls on the Northwest Tollway, they`re lured by the promise of easing that suburban evil, traffic gridlock.
To raise funds to build new interchanges between Schaumburg and Elgin, the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority plans to build a new toll plaza across all six westbound and eastbound lanes of the Northwest Tollway
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(Interstate Highway 90) between Meacham and Roselle Roads in Schaumburg.
Motorists would pay an additional 40 cents each way.
In briefings with municipalities, tollway officials are saying that the alternative to one ”mainline” toll plaza would be a series of small toll booths at exit and entrance ramps up and down the tollway between Schaumburg and Elgin, including Roselle and Barrington Roads.
The new plaza would cost an estimated $38 million and would permit the tollway authority to remove one of the worst bottlenecks on the tollway system, the 15-cent toll booths at Illinois Highway 53 for motorists entering the westbound Northwest Tollway from southbound 53 and for those exiting to 53 from the eastbound side of the tollway, said Robert Hickman, executive director of the tollway authority.
Design work is expected to take place in 1992, he said. Construction would begin in 1994 and be completed in 1995.
Currently, those who travel the Northwest Tollway get possibly the best bargain on the tollway system-a 14-mile ride from Des Plaines to South Barrington with only one 40-cent toll to pay, authority officials say.
Tollway officials said that the additional 40 cents would raise money for new on and off ramps, particularly to serve the hundreds of extra vehicles drawn to the area after the new Merchandise Group headquarters of Sears, Roebuck and Co. opens late next year in Hoffman Estates.
”Nobody likes to pay additional tolls,” said Schaumburg Mayor Al Larson, who was vocal in his opposition to the plan when highway officials unveiled it last year. ”But to build the interchanges they need the revenue. I guess you`ve got to take the bad with the good.”
Highway authorities have contacted village boards to present their plan. So far, highway engineers have appeared before the Palatine Village Board. Meetings are scheduled with trustees in Schaumburg and Hoffman Estates next month.
Along with the new toll plaza west of Meacham Road and the elimination of the existing toll booths at Illinois 53, the plan calls for new on- and off-ramps in several locations:
– Meacham Road, which now has no access to the tollway, will get westbound-off and eastbound-on ramps, and motorists will pay 40 cents` toll in both directions.
– Illinois Highway 59 will have on and off ramps in either direction. Currently, motorists can only exit the tollway eastbound and enter the tollway westbound. But to use the new ramps will cost 15 cents in each direction.
– Beverly Road, currently rampless, will get a westbound-off and eastbound-on ramp. No toll will be charged there.
Additionally, at Illinois Highway 25 in Elgin, the toll booth will be removed for motorists traveling to and from the east. But for drivers coming from or headed out the opposite direction, west, there will be a 15-cent toll each way.
The toll booths at Illinois Highway 31 in Elgin will be removed.
According to the project`s engineering report, a new mainline toll plaza is favored because it would bring the tolls charged on Interstate 90 in line with the fees paid by motorists on other tollways. Currently, users of the Northwest Tollway pay 2.8 cents per mile, compared with 3.1 cents per mile on the Tri-State Tollway.
The alternative would be to install toll booths charging 25 cents at Roselle and Barrington Roads, 30 cents at Illinois Highway 59 and Beverly Roads, and 40 cents at Illinois 25 and 31. The report predicted that the operating costs of that arrangement would be higher than with a single new mainline plaza.
Palatine Village President Rita Mullins said that most of her trustees felt the authority`s preferred plan was the best way to get new highway exits. ”When you have only a few exits, everyone is forced onto only a few roads,” Mullins said. Citing the Sears and Ameritech office projects in Hoffman Estates, which will bring thousands of new jobs to the area, she said, ”It would be best to have the exchanges to eliminate the concentration of traffic through your community.”
Larson said that a new toll plaza would increase traffic through Schaumburg, but only temporarily.
”I think people might be inclined at first to drive on Golf, Higgins and Algonquin (Roads) to avoid the tolls,” he said. ”But when people realize it`s taking them an extra 10 minutes to do that, after a while the diversion won`t take place.”