The Illinois Tollway plans to spend $1.63 billion next year on capital projects, the highest single-year spending in the agency’s history, according to the Tollway’s proposed 2015 budget.
The work includes repairing and rebuilding roads, bridges and interchanges. Most of the projects are included in the agency’s 15-year, $12 billion capital program.
“This is another record year for capital investment in our system,” Tollway Executive Director Kristi Lafleur said. The Tollway expects to spend $1.2 billion this year.
About half of the Tollway’s 2015 capital program spending will go toward rebuilding and widening the eastern portion of the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway (Interstate 90) between Elgin and the Kennedy Expressway.
Tolls won’t increase for passenger vehicles this year — an 87.5 percent hike went into effect Jan. 1, 2012. But tolls on trucks will start rising a total of 60 percent under an agreement the Tollway and the trucking industry negotiated in 2008.
Tollway officials are formally unveiling the budget Thursday, and the public will have nearly two months to comment before the Tollway board approves it.
Here’s a close look at the budget, by the numbers:
$1.17 billion: Total revenue the Tollway expects to receive in 2015. Also the amount of projected expenditures, making for a balanced budget, officials said.
How the Tollway plans to spend money in 2015:
$839 million: For continued work on the Jane Addams. Work will shift to the portion east of Elgin. The $2.5 billion project is expected to conclude in 2016.
$319.8 million: For work on building the new Elgin-O’Hare Western Access project. Total cost is expected to be $3.4 billion. The existing Elgin-O’Hare Expressway will be widened and extended east to a new north-south tollway skirting O’Hare’s western edge and connecting with the Addams and the Tri-State Tollway (I-294). Completion isn’t expected until 2025.
$241.1 million: Earmarked for systemwide road, interchange and bridge repairs, and other work.
$107.9 million: Will be spent in 2015 to resurface the Reagan Memorial Tollway (I-88) from Illinois Route 251 near Rochelle to U.S. Route 30 near Rock Falls.
$6.1 million: Estimated cost of planning studies for the proposed extension of Illinois Route 53/120 in Lake County, and other projects — with no guarantee the Route 53 extension will be built.
$17 million: To buy better cameras for toll plazas.
Where the money comes from:
$1.16 billion: What the Tollway expects to collect in tolls in 2015.
$150 million: Additional toll revenue raised in 2015, primarily from the increase in truck tolls.
40 percent: The percentage increase in tolls trucks will pay in 2015, followed by increases of 10 percent in each of the following two years.
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$800 million: What the Tollway expects to borrow through bond sales in 2015 to pay for new and future capital projects.
3.9 percent: Amount of increase in Tollway spending over 2014. The agency attributes the increase to higher costs for employee health care and retirement; higher insurance costs from growing workers’ compensation expenses; and rising price of fuel, among other expenses.
1,595: The number of Tollway employees. Down from 1,704 in 2010.
4: 2015 will be the fourth year of the Tollway’s $12 billion rebuilding and expansion program called Move Illinois.
286: Miles of highway in the Tollway system.
215: Pages in the Tollway’s proposed budget book. The document is posted on the Tollway’s website at http://www.illinoistollway.com.
2: Months before Dec. 18 when the Tollway board is scheduled to approve the budget. The public can comment online or at the hearing Nov. 10 and at an “open house” Nov. 17.
Twitter @richwronski