Drivers hate tollway congestion. Consumers oppose toll-increase proposals and wasteful agency spending. Environmentalists have long differed with the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority over its operating approaches and, especially, its plans to build two new billion-dollar toll roads in Lake County and Will County that will cause more sprawl and congestion and that are unaffordable.
But let’s give credit where it is due. Following Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s mandate to “reform the Toll Highway Authority from the bottom up,” the agency is cleaning up its act and doing better. New Executive Director Jack Hartman and Board Chairman John Mitola have taken some reform steps in the right direction that merit attention. For example:
– Hiring a management team with public service experience and expertise, and providing better training for tollway employees to improve customer service.
– Expanding the number of I-PASS lanes and making transponders available for purchase at grocery stores and online.
– Revamping the old oases, which need upgrading and a broader range of services.
– Potentially making the agency, its employees and contractors more accountable by creating an office of inspector general.
– Making the agency more transparent by promising to provide public quarterly reports that will track and measure spending against the agency’s budget and by providing more annual budget information than in years past through public meetings.
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– Pledging to prepare a 10-year capital plan, which will assess the condition of the toll roads, the cost of repairing them and, it is hoped, the financing realities. This new plan should be deeper and more thoughtful than the sketchy $5 billion capital plan that the agency unveiled two years ago. And it should lay out the realistic financial tradeoffs and toll-hike implications.
The governor’s January 2003 inaugural speech pointed out the need for tollway reform. Given the agency’s long history of corruption, lack of planning and freewheeling spending at the public’s expense, there is plenty to reform. Fortunately there is some progress.
As the first year’s reforms take hold, the Toll Highway Authority’s next challenge will be to live within its financial means and avoid calling for a big toll increase by focusing on priorities that it can afford. The Toll Highway Authority should look to fix the existing toll roads first, rather than engage in costly expansions. According to engineering studies, needed repairs and maintenance have been deferred. Innovative revenue-neutral congestion pricing approaches, which have been used for toll roads, transit and bridges across the country, can also help to alleviate congestion by smoothing out traffic flow and save money by avoiding costly toll-road widenings.
The Toll Highway Authority does have a ways to go in regaining the public’s confidence. Let’s recognize the good steps that it is taking in the right direction. Let’s hope that it stays on a reform track.