Illinois
Bell tolls? Illinois Tollway tears out last booths, ending age of paying with change
Gone are the days of stashing coins in your car for highway toll booths, the last vestige of a 60-year period when drivers could stop to deposit change or hand over cash.
The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority tore out its last physical booth along the southern section of Interstate 294 this summer, more than four years after the agency stopped using booths during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s left some former toll collectors nostalgic for the time when they could offer customer service in person.
“Whatever [customers] needed, we had it,” said Clovia Lockridge, who collected tolls from 2012 until the system went dormant in March 2020, amid COVID-19 lockdowns.
Lockridge remembers helping customers with directions, maps and even replacement Velcro for toll transponders, free of charge.
“Not only were we sticking our hands out collecting tolls, we were the face of the tollway,” said Lockridge, 44, who usually worked at Plaza 43 in the south suburbs.
Crews remove tollbooths and the concrete barriers at Illinois Tollway Plaza 41 on southbound I-294, near 163rd Street, in Markham, Friday, June 28, 2024.
Now tollway drivers must use an I-Pass or, if they are traveling from out of state and don’t use a compatible E-ZPass, must pay online or get a bill in the mail.
“The world is a little colder without human contact options,” said Joseph Schwieterman, a DePaul University professor and veteran researcher on transportation issues.
The shift to all-electronic tolling is the latest move to automate more aspects of transportation. Bus company Greyhound recently stopped accepting cash. Metra last year closed its ticketing windows, leaving commuters to use either an app or vending machines.
The Illinois Tollway stopped using toll booths in 2020 and made the move permanent a year later. Now the agency is removing the concrete barriers that divided the booths at plazas and on ramps, creating a fully open road toll system.
“The tollway is now an all-electronic, or cashless system. That means we don’t need a lot of this infrastructure,” Illinois Tollway chief engineering officer Manar Nashif said in an interview.
The tollway hasn’t decided what to do with the toll booth lanes.
“Right now, we’re just focused on removing that infrastructure,” Nashif said.
The Illinois Tollway first opened to traffic in 1958, envisioned as a bypass around the urban core of Chicago, according to a tollway history.
When the system opened, the six toll plazas along the Tri-State charged 30 cents each. The original system also included the Northwest Highway, now called the Jane Addams Memorial, and East-West Tollway, now the Reagan Memorial.
A 1958 job notice in the Chicago Sun-Times said the Tollway Authority was looking to employ 80 men, age 24 or older, as toll collectors. Pay started at $3,900 a year.
Over decades, the agency expanded to operate more than 290 miles of tollway in 12 counties.
An I-88 driver antes up at the Oak Brook Plaza in the western suburb in May 2011.
Rich Hein/Sun-Times file photo
Tollways nationwide began going cashless about two decades ago as toll authorities embraced transponder technology.
Cashless lanes can handle at least five times as many cars as tollbooth lanes, according to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Electronic tolling also cuts down on emissions from cars that would otherwise stop to pay tolls. It’s cheaper, too, with about $135,000 in annual savings per lane versus manual collection, according to the same report.
“For large systems like Illinois, this is a godsend,” said Mark Muriello, vice president of policy and government affairs at the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association. “This really speeds people along.”
About two-thirds of tollways in America are now electronic-only, Muriello said.
The pandemic accelerated the shift to all-electronic tolling. The Illinois Tollway, which began open road tolling in 2005, almost immediately shifted to all-electronic tolling during the pandemic.
Crews remove tollbooths and the concrete barriers at Illinois Tollway Plaza 41 on southbound I-294, near 163rd Street, in Markham last month.
Nashif said when the pandemic hit, most Illinois tollway users were already I-Pass users.
“This is a natural way that we’ve been headed,” he said.
The shift to cashless tolling has had consequences for out-of-state travelers.
“As someone who travels across the United States in rental cars, it’s daunting,” Schwieterman said. “Do I need to download an app? Or bring my own pass? It’s very tricky.”
Cashless tolling has also left toll collectors in the lurch.
When the Illinois Tollway went all cashless in 2020, it reassigned its toll collectors as customer service representatives. The tollway still employs nearly 150 of them but has plans to lay them off at the end of August.
SEIU Local 73, which represents the tollway workers, is negotiating the layoffs with Illinois Tollway in the hopes it will change its mind about outsourcing the call-taker jobs to a nonprofit organization.
Lockridge, one of the former toll collectors and a member of the union bargaining committee, said customer service will take a hit if she and her co-workers are laid off.
“If you know a toll collector, you know they are dedicated,” Lockridge said, “It’s something that’s in their heart. It’s something they’ve always done.”
Illinois
4 shot in Rockford, suspect in custody; police ask public to avoid area
Saturday, July 18, 2026 11:43AM
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WLS) — Rockford police are investigating a quadruple shooting on Saturday.
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The shooting happened near Island and Clifton Avenues, police said.
Police said four people were shot. All injuries appeared to be non-life-threatening, police said.
The shooting suspect was in police custody.
No other information was immediately available.
The public is asked to avoid the area as they continue to investigate.
Copyright © 2026 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.
Illinois
Produce Recall Issued In Parasite Outbreak Hitting IL
A number of Taco Bell locations have posted signs announcing they are “currently unable to sell Lettuce, Cilantro Onion, Pico de Gallo, and Guacamole due to a nationwide recall,” according to Detroit-area news radio outlet WWJ.
Taco Bell told the Post it would keep monitoring the situation and follow authorities’ guidance.
Taco Bell Lettuce Linked To Growing MI Parasite Outbreak: FDA
“Public health officials have not confirmed a link to Taco Bell or any specific ingredient, supplier, restaurant or retailer,” the company told the Post. “While authorities continue their broader review, Taco Bell has voluntarily and temporarily removed limited ingredients at select restaurants as a precautionary measure.”
In Michigan, where cases have been concentrated, media reports said notices were posted at some Detroit-area Taco Bell restaurants last week telling customers the chain was “currently unable to sell Lettuce, Cilantro-Onion, Pico de Gallo, and Guacamole due to a nationwide recall.”
Illinois
Illinois GOP trails badly in midterm cash
The Illinois Republican Party filed its quarterly campaign finance report on the July 15 deadline. The party reported having just $223K in the bank. The next day, the party sent a letter to the Illinois State Board of Elections saying they were “reconciling” their records after a leadership change, and then noted that their actual end balance was $101K higher than it had reported the day before.
But that bit of found money was basically the end of the “good news” for the GOP last week.
Republicans no longer have a pet billionaire. Bruce Rauner and Ken Griffin have fled the state. The legions of wealthy business titans who once contributed and raised money have either retired to sunnier climes or passed away. Several prominent party members have publicly shunned labor unions and their hefty political war chests, although the state GOP legislative leaders have at least tried to rebuild ties to trade unions and even the Illinois Education Association. But the heavily gerrymandered legislative map combined with the current political climate means they’ll mostly receive scraps.
And, yes, the House Democrats are struggling this month with scandals, including a state representative who resigned under pressure and another who was indicted. I’m not trying to downplay that at all. But Democrats have the national political environment, the local infrastructure and tons of cash behind them. The Republicans have little to none of that.
The GOP’s gubernatorial candidate, Darren Bailey, raised $1.3 million in the second quarter, which ended June 30. That sounds like a lot, but he spent almost all of that on direct mail fundraising costs. The huge expenditures do give him a prospect list for future fundraising, but he ended the quarter with a mere $128K in the bank. That was still a whole lot more than the rest of the statewide ticket.
Attorney General nominee Bob Fioretti, a perennial candidate, raised $31K, spent $39K and had $28K on hand at the end of the quarter along with almost $15K in recent debt. Secretary of State candidate Diane Harris raised $6K, spent a bit over $4K and had a paltry $1,816.42 in the bank. Treasurer candidate Max Solomon, who ran as a write-in during the primary because the party failed to recruit anyone, raised less than $3K, reported no spending and ended the quarter with less than $8K. Comptroller candidate Bryan Drew raised $30K and received $47K in in-kind contributions from a company owned, ironically, by independent gubernatorial candidate Collin Corbett, spent less than $3K, ended with $54K and had $25K in debt from earlier this year.
Man, that’s just downright pathetic.
But I suppose it doesn’t really matter anyway unless we see a massive sea-change in national opinion in the coming months or the federal government finds a way to not certify certain election results. Regardless of where individual candidates are at this moment, they’ll have the money to compete. Unlike the Republicans, the Dems do have a pet billionaire (JB Pritzker) and, I assume eventually for most of them, organized labor.
The Republican legislative leaders have tried to scrape and claw as much as they can, but they’re vastly outgunned. Senate Republican Leader John Curran raised just $75K in the second quarter. He spent $71K and reported having a bit more than $3 million in the bank. His caucus committee reported having $160K in the bank.
Leader Curran has three Republican-held districts to defend in the Chicago media market that have all trended Democratic in the last three cycles. Depending how bad things get, he could be defending a couple, two or three more.
The Senate Democrats have a ton of money to do whatever they want. Senate President Don Harmon has about $20 million in his personal campaign account and $1.7 million in his caucus account.
Over in the House, Republican Leader Tony McCombie has at least four Democratic-trending or swingy districts to defend and just $1.3 million in her personal campaign account and another $363K in her caucus account so far.
In contrast, House Speaker Chris Welch had $11.4 million in his personal account and $1.2 million in his caucus account. Like Senate President Harmon, he has more than enough money already, but more is never enough when there’s so much out there, so those numbers will likely rise by November.
Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and CapitolFax.com.
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