Tested waters are clear: Don't raise tolls
Talk of a toll increase was brief but attention-getting this week. Fortunately, it was also short-lived and, apparently, premature.
It began with this quote from Paula Wolff, tollway board chairwoman, in Crain's Chicago Business: "I'm not sitting here today saying we're going to raise tolls. But you can't be thinking about the future of the system without thinking about where the revenues are going to come from."
It probably shouldn't have been surprising to hear a tollway leader ruminating in general terms about how to pay for billions of dollars in construction work on the planning table. But in an economic framework structured around service cuts and cost increases, Wolff's comment clearly struck a nerve.
Never mind that tollway directors from Naperville's George Pradel to recent appointee Bill Morris, and ultimately Wolff herself, were quick to assure that no increase was proposed or considered. It's a sign both of our times and our skepticism about the tollway that the mere hint of higher tolls sent red flags flying.
Like any tax hike, a toll increase should be a solution of last resort, while the tollway has a host of projects on its "to do" list, it is nowhere near the point of last resort. So it was reassuring to hear Wolff and other board members acknowledge that.
"Unless it's proven that it's really needed, I would not be the one proposing (a toll increase) right now or be enthusiastically behind it," said Pradel, who in addition to serving on the tollway board is Naperville mayor.
Morris was even more direct, stating that any new projects should pay for themselves.
Moreover, as Morris also said, the tollway - although already more responsive and open than it was under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich - still has plenty of repair work to do on its own reputation in the wake of federal charges that Blagojevich was using it as a political bargaining tool.
As Morris told Daily Herald transportation reporter Marni Pyke, "we can't even talk about raising tolls until we have our house completely in order."
There is a telling coincidence in this brief tempest surging on the first day of work for the tollway's new executive director, Kristi Lefleur. If she had any notions about looking to the prospect of toll hikes to underwrite work on the horizon - much of it of clear value, like resurfacing or lane reconstruction of the Jane Addams Tollway or even tollway work associated with the proposed suburb-to-suburb STAR rail project - it should be clear at this point that she and other planners should be looking elsewhere.
The controversy was something of a harsh introduction to her new job, perhaps, but it was an important one as well. Everyone associated with leadership of the tollway should share Morris' clarity that, in these times and for the foreseeable future, toll increases are not even an appropriate topic of discussion.