Move Illinois delivering more tollway jobs
The Illinois tollway's $12 billion Move Illinois construction program will entail adding 35 positions in the next five years.
Most of those jobs will be in engineering and technology with salary ranges between $30,000 and $115,000, officials said Thursday.
Move Illinois projects include extending the Elgin-O'Hare Expressway east to the airport and building a western bypass, building an interchange at I-57 and the Tri-State Tollway (I-294) in the south suburbs, and widening the Jane Addams Tollway (I-90) over the next 15 years.
The agency in June approved a $70 million five-year contract with engineering consultants HNTB to oversee and coordinate the construction program. The tollway could have used personnel at HNTB instead of hiring the 35 staffers, but the move allows it to gain in-house expertise and plan for the future when retirements occur, administrators said.
“It helps build the pipeline of talent here,” Executive Director Kristi Lafleur said. “We will have people to go to for promotional opportunities and people who understand our system and process.”
Adding the positions is expected to cost the agency $17 million over five years, but it would have cost $23 million if the work had been shifted to consultants, officials said.
It's unclear if the jobs will remain once Move Illinois is finished.
“It's impossible to know what will happen to these positions in 2026 after our capital program has ended, because there is no way to know what their value will be to the tollway 15 years from now and how their upcoming experiences will impact their career path at our agency,” communications chief Wendy Abrams said.
Lafleur said, “I don't know if at the end of the program we will have 35 or 40 more people working in the engineering department than we do today.
“We anticipate over 15 years, our agency will see staff come and go — you'll have people leaving their jobs or retiring. There will be attrition in the engineering department just like in all other departments and it will be a balance.”