Illinois Tollway -- pay attention to pay tolls

Your advice is good for someone who is unaware and never bothered to
research their route ahead of time. To do this, you only need to have
a highway map that shows toll roads, and then you're all set. If you
know where the toll routes are, you're likely to remember to watch out
for them at some point along your route (I stay right when waiting for
things to happen, not all the way right, but in the second to right
lane at least).

I had no problem with any tolls and I wasn't familiar with the Chicago
area, however I did know there were tolls everywhere. Locals warned me
of tolls going to Milwaukee which I wasn't aware of.

My advice is not to watch out in Chicago, but to look at a highway map
ahead of time and find out if toll roads exist where you are going,
and where, and how much. Some of those roads only take coin, so my
advice is to travel with a few dollars in change for those pesky
automated tolls.

For the most part, I didn't find them to be a big problem, and I
didn't miss a single one either. (otherwise my rental company would be
after me like white on rice).

S.

On Jul 18, 10:01 pm, Abe Kouris wrote:
Drove the Tri-State Tollway south from O'Hare the other day, and I see
they've been going great guns with the high-speed I-pass toll
collection. I guess it's great for the regular commuters, but if
you're an out-of-twner like me, you have to be very careful, or you
could miss some tolls.

What they have is instead of a toll barrier across the whole highway,
they have 4 lanes each way in the center where you can drive through
at full speed and have the toll charged to your I-Pass (what we folks
in the east coast call and EZ-pass). That's fine if you have an I-
Pass, but visitors like me, driving a rental car, don't. So for us,
we're supposed to move right and go through a conventional toll
barrier. The only problem is that half of the toll barriers are for I-
Pass only, which means you really have to move to the right or you're
going to inadvertently run the toll. Of course, in today's Big
Brother world, cameras will get your license tag number, with a nice
fat hefty fine being charged to enrich the coffers of the state, or,
apparently, the private company to which the state has turned over the
tollway. Oh, and did I forget to tell you that they don't bother to
post the toll rates, except in very small print right at the toll
booth, so you have to come to a complete stop and fiddle around to get
the toll, delaying traffic further.

Well, we were so confused by the poor signage and road layout (way to
got Illinois department of Transportation!) that we rann two of those
tolls. Fortunately, a native told us about the web page where you can
pay the tolls without getting fined.

http://www.illinoistollway.com/porta...1395981&_dad=p...

http://www.illinoistollway.com/porta..._schema=PORTAL...

Which I did.

So if you're visiting the Chicago area, be careful out there!

(By the way, is it my imagination, or have Chicago drivers started to
take lessons from New Jersey drivers? It's been a few years since the
last time I was driving around Chicago, but they did seem to be a lot
more agressive this past trip.)

"Bill in Schenectady" wrote in message
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"tim....." wrote in message
...

"Bill in Schenectady" wrote in message
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"sechumlib" wrote in message
...
On 2007-07-20 22:53:12 -0400, "Bill in Schenectady"
said:

I use the NYS Thruway almost daily and have EZ Pass. The Thruway uses
first
generation technology...you still have to slow to 5 MPH in most
places,
though they've installed some 20MPG lanes and 30 MPH lanes on the
Tappen Zee
Bridge.

Also around Buffalo, now. I haven't checked Exit 25 in Albany, but it
might be next.

Exit 24 is the western exit into Albany. It has a 20 MPH lane when
entering the Thruway.

Exit 25 is 890 to Schenectady.

Did they deliberatley name this place so that it is impossible
to say? (Or do you do what us Brits would do and leave out
half the letters?)

tim

LOL...try pronouncing some of the towns named after British locations,
such as Worcester,

Woos-ter, what wrong with that :-), I suppose that it's Worr-ces-ter
as that how all the foreigners pronounce the 'real' town.

Massachusetts.

I'm sure that this would be hard if the Bee Gees hadn't
already told the world.


Schenectady is pronounced nearly as it's spelled: ska-NECK-ta-dee. It
comes from a Native American language and supposedly means "Land beyond
the Wood" or something like that. It may also mean "land by the water" or
"land over there" or "place where dinner waits", for all I know.

Thanks

tim

On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 23:20:16 -0700, Sapphyre wrote:
Your advice is good for someone who is unaware and never bothered to
research their route ahead of time. To do this, you only need to have
a highway map that shows toll roads, and then you're all set. If you
know where the toll routes are, you're likely to remember to watch out
for them at some point along your route (I stay right when waiting for
things to happen, not all the way right, but in the second to right
lane at least).

Maps tell you that I-290 is a tollroad. The OP, my brother, and myself
are all well aware of that.

What the map doesn't tell you is how the
tollbooths are configured. Which lanes are I-Pass? (I certainly don't
think it's obvious the *middle* lanes would be I-Pass! Indeed, when
low-speed I-Pass first went in, it was the *left-hand* lanes that had the
I-Pass stations.)

I suppose it shouldn't bother me one way or the other. As any chronic
speeder will tell you, it's not absolute speed that makes danger, it's
differential speed. So why is the State of Illinois requiring tourists to
come to a dead stop in the middle of a freeway while simultaneously
allowing locals to drive 70+mph on the same road? With high-speed
I-Pass, I no longer consider it safe for tourists to use the Illinois
Tollway.

(they should either require I-Pass users to stop or use an Ohio-style
system where you stop only on the on/off ramps and/or state line to pick
up a card/pay your toll. )

On 2007-07-22 21:52:56 -0400, "Bill in Schenectady" said:


"sechumlib" wrote in message
...

And if you think that's bad, try Valatie and Schagticoke. And Breakabeen.

My favorites in the area:

Coxsackie
Watervliet

And how do they pronounce Cairo in Greene County, NY (Northern Catskill
Mountains). It's CAAro.

Well, for reasonably local places Skaneateles is pretty good. (When we
first came here in the 1980's, my wife pronounced it "ska-NEAT-ls".)

Then there's Delhi (DEL-hye). And Brazil, IN (BRAY-zle). And Canaan, WV
(ka-NANE). And New Madrid, MO (new MAD-rid).

We from Schenectady can go on & on!

On 2007-07-23 02:20:16 -0400, Sapphyre said:

My advice is not to watch out in Chicago, but to look at a highway map
ahead of time and find out if toll roads exist where you are going,
and where, and how much.

My advice is to stay away from the Chicago area at all costs. No matter
how the toll situation is, the traiffic situation is unformly awful.

I haven't been on the I-290, just the I-90 Skyway and heading up to
Milwaukee, so unfortunately I can't comment on the toll booth set up
you describe. When I was passing on I-90, there are four lanes of
traffic that go through the I-Pass, and then other non-I-Pass vehicles
pull to the right where they pay the fare at an unmanned or manned
toll booth station. We got used to sticking to the right, and the sign
was often with warning one mile ahead.

That's my experience with it, so that's the basis of my post. Perhaps
if I drive I-290 I'll be more inclined to agree with you.

S.

On Jul 23, 10:44 am, Doug Smith W9WI wrote:
Maps tell you that I-290 is a tollroad. The OP, my brother, and myself
are all well aware of that.

What the map doesn't tell you is how the
tollbooths are configured. Which lanes are I-Pass? (I certainly don't
think it's obvious the *middle* lanes would be I-Pass! Indeed, when
low-speed I-Pass first went in, it was the *left-hand* lanes that had the
I-Pass stations.)

I suppose it shouldn't bother me one way or the other. As any chronic
speeder will tell you, it's not absolute speed that makes danger, it's
differential speed. So why is the State of Illinois requiring tourists to
come to a dead stop in the middle of a freeway while simultaneously
allowing locals to drive 70+mph on the same road? With high-speed
I-Pass, I no longer consider it safe for tourists to use the Illinois
Tollway.

(they should either require I-Pass users to stop or use an Ohio-style
system where you stop only on the on/off ramps and/or state line to pick
up a card/pay your toll. )

On Jul 23, 12:05 pm, sechumlib wrote:
On 2007-07-23 02:20:16 -0400, Sapphyre said:

My advice is not to watch out in Chicago, but to look at a highway map
ahead of time and find out if toll roads exist where you are going,
and where, and how much.

My advice is to stay away from the Chicago area at all costs. No matter
how the toll situation is, the traiffic situation is unformly awful.

You know, when I read this I thought to myself, "there is another
stupid piece of advice", but I have to say I think you're right on the
money with this one. I paid $70 to park for a day (not because it was
outrageous to park for a day, but I had to move the car to three
different parts of the city, so I really parked for 6 hours only). I
will NEVER drive a car through Chicago. I will park and ride public
transportation if I ever head there again, and I will still a whole
lot closer to where I'm going knowing that it will be cheaper to leave
the car parked for a few days than use it as a vehicle to drive
around. I was none too happy with my companion driving the rental
through Chicago. Lesson learnt, you do not let a guy who doesn't own a
car and drive every day in heavy traffic operate a rental car in
Chicago. While I don't drive in heavy traffic every day, I do drive
around 20 miles per day, and I have driven through Toronto many times.
If I can handle Toronto, I can probably handle mostly anything except
Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.

S.

On 2007-07-23 18:27:30 -0400, Sapphyre said:

I
will NEVER drive a car through Chicago. I will park and ride public
transportation if I ever head there again,

I think there are various park-&-ride stations at outlying subway
stations, but I really don't know. Being in Schenectady, I don't learn
much about Chicago!

"tim....." wrote in message
...

"Bill in Schenectady" wrote in message
news:K6Toi.1013$Ok5.829@trndny02...

"tim....." wrote in message
...

"Bill in Schenectady" wrote in message
news:bDzoi.2423$0v4.392@trndny01...

"sechumlib" wrote in message
...
On 2007-07-20 22:53:12 -0400, "Bill in Schenectady"
said:

I use the NYS Thruway almost daily and have EZ Pass. The Thruway
uses first
generation technology...you still have to slow to 5 MPH in most
places,
though they've installed some 20MPG lanes and 30 MPH lanes on the
Tappen Zee
Bridge.

Also around Buffalo, now. I haven't checked Exit 25 in Albany, but it
might be next.

Exit 24 is the western exit into Albany. It has a 20 MPH lane when
entering the Thruway.

Exit 25 is 890 to Schenectady.

Did they deliberatley name this place so that it is impossible
to say? (Or do you do what us Brits would do and leave out
half the letters?)

tim

LOL...try pronouncing some of the towns named after British locations,
such as Worcester,

Woos-ter, what wrong with that :-), I suppose that it's Worr-ces-ter
as that how all the foreigners pronounce the 'real' town.

Massachusetts.

I'm sure that this would be hard if the Bee Gees hadn't
already told the world.


Schenectady is pronounced nearly as it's spelled: ska-NECK-ta-dee. It
comes from a Native American language and supposedly means "Land beyond
the Wood" or something like that. It may also mean "land by the water"
or "land over there" or "place where dinner waits", for all I know.

Thanks

tim

Having grown up about 40 miles from Worcester, Massachusetts, it always
amused me when local TV stations would hire new newscasters from other
areas. They would struggle and stumble over the name. Of course, it's
WOOSter, however Eastern Massachusetts speakers may say "Wista".

"sechumlib" wrote in message
...
On 2007-07-23 18:27:30 -0400, Sapphyre said:

I
will NEVER drive a car through Chicago. I will park and ride public
transportation if I ever head there again,

I think there are various park-&-ride stations at outlying subway
stations, but I really don't know. Being in Schenectady, I don't learn
much about Chicago!


Well I did have two trips to Chicago in a two month period a couple of years
ago. Both times, I flew into Midway and both times I stayed in mid town
hotels. The first time, I took a cab for about $20. The next time, I took
the subway (El?...whatever it's called) from Midway for a buck, or perhaps
it was a buck and change.