Illinois has so many tolls because the state decided in 1953 to build its busiest Chicago-area expressways with bonds repaid by the drivers who used them, rather than with tax revenue. Postwar suburban growth demanded high-capacity highways faster than the state’s general fund could deliver, and the user-pays model worked. Toll revenue has covered construction, maintenance, and operations ever since, so there has never been serious fiscal pressure to tear the system down and hand the bill to taxpayers.
A System That Pays For Itself
The Illinois Tollway receives no state or federal tax dollars for its maintenance and operations.1Illinois Tollway. Finance and Investor Information Every dollar for repaving, snow removal, technology upgrades, and new construction comes from toll collections and from bonds backed by future toll revenue. Removing the tolls would mean raising taxes to replace that funding or allowing the roads to decay. Neither has drawn meaningful political support.
Financial independence also lets the agency plan on its own timeline instead of waiting in line behind schools, prisons, and Medicaid for appropriations. The current capital plan, Move Illinois, is a 16-year, $15 billion program covering the rebuilt Jane Addams Memorial Tollway and the new I-490 Tollway, with completion targeted for the end of 2027.2Illinois Tollway. Capital Programs Investment at that sustained scale is possible precisely because the funding stream is walled off.
Where The Toll Money Goes
The Tollway’s 2025 revenue budget totaled roughly $1.72 billion, with about $1.65 billion coming directly from toll collection and evasion recovery. The money is spent in four main places:
- Road maintenance and repairs, including resurfacing, bridge work, and guardrail replacement.
- Debt service on bonds issued for major construction. Total system debt stands at about $7 billion and is expected to climb to $8 billion as Move Illinois concludes.1Illinois Tollway. Finance and Investor Information
- Operations, including staffing, snow and ice control, traffic monitoring, and incident response.
- Capital construction such as new interchanges, widenings, and entirely new corridors.
One point matters for anyone wondering whether their tolls get siphoned off elsewhere: 100 percent of toll revenue stays within the Tollway system. Even under the recently signed Northern Illinois Transit Authority Act, which creates $1.5 billion in new annual transit funding, toll revenue remains dedicated exclusively to Tollway maintenance, operations, and capital improvements.3Governor’s Office. FACT SHEET: Northern Illinois Transit Authority Act (SB 2111) Whether that firewall holds over the long run is a separate question, but the legal separation is clear now.
Six Toll Routes Packed Around One Metro Area
Part of why Illinois feels so toll-heavy is geography. The entire network sits in and around the Chicago metropolitan area, totaling roughly 2,300 lane-miles across mainline and ramp segments. Drive through the suburbs in almost any direction and a toll gantry is nearly unavoidable. The six routes:
- Jane Addams Memorial Tollway (I-90), running northwest from O’Hare toward Rockford and the Wisconsin border at South Beloit.
- Tri-State Tollway (I-94/I-294), the bypass arc looping south, west, and north around Chicago to the Wisconsin line.
- Reagan Memorial Tollway (I-88), heading west from Hillside to the Rock Falls area.
- Veterans Memorial Tollway (I-355), running north-south from I-290 to I-80.
- Illinois Route 390 Tollway, an east-west route through the northwest suburbs completed under Move Illinois.
- I-490 Tollway, under construction to connect I-90 to I-294 near O’Hare.
From Three Highways In 1958 To Six Today
The groundwork goes back to 1941, when the state first created a toll highway authority. World War II shelved construction, and the project waited until postwar suburban growth made new expressways urgent. In 1953, the General Assembly established the Toll Highway Commission to build roads quickly using bond financing instead of waiting on tax appropriations.4Illinois General Assembly. House Resolution 0151 – Illinois Toll Highway Authority
Construction began in late 1956. All three original tollways opened in sections during 1958: the Northwest Tollway (now I-90), the Tri-State Tollway (I-294/I-94), and the East-West Tollway (now I-88). The initial system covered 187 miles at a cost of approximately $459 million. In 1968 the Commission reorganized into the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, the agency that still runs the system.4Illinois General Assembly. House Resolution 0151 – Illinois Toll Highway Authority
The network stayed at three roads for three decades. The legislature authorized the North-South Tollway (I-355) in 1984, and its first segment opened in 1989 between I-55 and I-290. A southern extension to I-80 opened in 2007. Illinois Route 390 followed under the Move Illinois program, and I-490 is now under construction.2Illinois Tollway. Capital Programs Each expansion was financed the same way as the original three: by promising bondholders a future stream of tolls, which locked those tolls into place for decades after each road opened.
Who Runs The Tollway
The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority is a state government agency created to build, operate, and maintain these roads. Its powers come from the Toll Highway Act (605 ILCS 10), which authorizes the agency to collect tolls, acquire property, and set the regulations governing the system.5Illinois General Assembly. http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=1746&ChapterID=45 It operates independently from the Illinois Department of Transportation, which handles the state’s non-toll highways. That independence is why the Tollway can issue its own bonds and set its own rates without going through the regular appropriations process.
What This Means For Drivers Now
Illinois went fully cashless years ago. There are no toll booths and no coins. Every toll is collected either through an I-PASS or E-ZPass transponder on your windshield or by cameras that photograph your license plate. Transponder users pay half the posted toll rate, a 50 percent discount, and out-of-state E-ZPass transponders work on the Illinois system at the same discounted rate.6Illinois Tollway. I-PASS Account Drivers without a transponder have 14 days from their first trip to pay through the Tollway’s Pay By Plate service before fees and violation notices start accumulating.7Illinois Tollway. Pay By Plate
Rates are moving. The Tollway had not raised tolls in more than a decade before the Northern Illinois Transit Authority Act passed. Under that legislation, the agency is planning rate adjustments for both passenger and commercial vehicles, subject to board approval.3Governor’s Office. FACT SHEET: Northern Illinois Transit Authority Act (SB 2111) Commercial rates for 2026 are already published; passenger adjustments are pending. State officials have been explicit that the increases are meant to keep pace with rising construction and maintenance costs, not to subsidize transit.
So the short answer to why Illinois has so many tolls is that the state built its suburban expressway network on borrowed money seven decades ago, promised bondholders that drivers would pay it back, and then kept using the same model every time it added a new road. The debt is still being paid, new debt is being issued for I-490 and other projects, and the political case for ever ending the tolls has never materialized.