Talk:Illinois Tollway

Untitled

There is a statement in this article that says that the Illinois Tollways are the only tollways to accept pennies. This is a myth that began on the West Wing television show. The fact is pennies are also acceptable to the automated collection machines at the westpoint toll barrier on the Indiana Toll Road.

You give West Wing too much credit. The bit about the Lincoln Pennies/Land of Lincoln has been a bit of Illinois folklore for as long as I can remember, and I've been an Illinois resident for over 20 years.

Further, the seven oases on the Illinois Tollway system are being reconstructed and will be managed under a long term lease agreement with Wilton Partners and Exxon/Mobil.

The details of that agreement are in fact covered in the Illinois Tollway oasis article, and are left out here, to prevent redundancy. --JohnDBuell 23:08, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Tollway in Chicago

"ISTHA manages four toll routes in Illinois. None enter the city of Chicago, by design."

This is false. If we are to go by Wikipedia's map of Chicago, then I-294 must cross the Chicago city limits at the gooseneck between O'Hare and the Kennedy. Rosemont is to the north, and Schiller Park is to the south. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 22:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

That's correct, but it's only on a technicality. None of the tollways were designed to reach into downtown Chicago, period. That's what I-290 and 90/94 are for. It would be more accurate to say either: "None of them have the City of Chicago as an endpoint, by design" (unlike I-290) or "None of them enter Chicago's Loop, by design." --JohnDBuell 23:38, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Technical Construction Trivia

Though most Interstate Highways have twelve foot wide lanes, most (all?) of the Illinois Tollway lanes are 12.5 feet wide. This was for 1950s/1960s marketing, plus it actually makes driving a little easier. Next time you drive it, take a look.

The concrete pavement is typically thicker than other Chicagoland Expressways, so it tends to last longer and ride smoother.

The concrete median barriers along I-80 near Thorton were amongh the first in the world to be slip-formed (no traditional wooden forms needed). Low-slump concrete went in the hopper, and the constantly-moving, self-propelled slip-form machine would form it on-the-fly.

(I may sound pro-ISTHA and many would call them the Evil Empire, but they had lots of money 30 years ago, and would spend it on first-rate maintenance. They hired us as engineering consultants during the summer, which helped pay for my college tuition).

If you've got verifiable external sources for any or all of these (online or printed), go ahead and toss them into the article. It'd make a unique addition! --JohnDBuell 17:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Historical Timeline in article is incorrect

In History section it states:

In the 1970s, the East–West Tollway was extended west from Sugar Grove to Dixon, Illinois with a freeway continuing to the Quad Cities. In 2004, ISTHA voted to rename this route the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway. The route was later given the Interstate-88 designation in order to obtain a higher speed limit. However, the timeline is backwards. The route was given the Interstate-88 designation in the mid-80's, shortly after the 65 MPH speed limit for interstates was approved, and later was renamed as the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway. The reference to Reagan was because the road runs close to Dixon, the town Reagan lived in as a boy, and Eureka, the town where he attended college. Wedriscoll (talk) 13:51, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Illinois State Toll Highway Authority/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Arsenikk ^(talk) 13:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Interesting article that is getting close to GA. My main concerns are the lack of references, a number of very short paragraphs and the lack of an operations or organization section. I would also like to see some pictures of some of the roads. Some other comments:

• An infobox would be suitable.
• Nowhere does it state 'United States'.
• 'Governor' should only the capitalized when in full (i.e. 'The Governor of Illenois'). When just writing about the governor, use lower caps. Is there no article on this office to link to?
• The sentence "In reports on the Authority in the press, such as those by the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune and the Daily Herald, the Authority's full name is used." is fully worthy of inclusion in the article, but perhaps not in the lead.
• The lead doesn't really summarize the article. For instance, there is little about the actual highways that is manages, as well as any history.
• Could the sentence "The first toll highways in the Chicago area were planned, constructed simultaneously, and finally opened in 1958 under the authority of this Commission." be reworded slightly; it is particularly 'constructed simultaneously' that confuses me as to whether planning, construction and opening happened at the same time, or construction of all the roads happened at the same time.
• Dates in the format Month DD, YYYY, need a comma after them. As does City, State.
• There are three very short paragraphs in the history section. These should be merged into the other paragraphs.
• The sentence "As of 2009[update], ISTHA maintains and operates 286 miles of interstate tollways in 12 counties in Northern Illinois." is a vital summary of the authority, and should be in the lead as well.
• Units of measurement need to be in both imperial and metric. Use {{convert}} for easy conversion.
• North-South should use an endash (–) instead of a hyphen (-).
• Several statements in the history section lack references.
• More a question than a comment, but is it such that a toll road continues to collect tolls forever, or just until the road is payed off? From my European point of view that former seems politically unacceptable, but I may be missing something.
  • Excellent question. I have vivid recollection of all the promises made in 1958 that the system would be paid off by 1988 and made a freeway. Instead, they issued new bonds to extend the system to Dixon, Illinois. When those bonds were about to be paid off, they issued new bonds for the Congestion Relief program. The Tollway will not pay off the latest bonds until 2035. This really represents a subsidy by commuters of new routes that they will not use. 66.173.140.100 (talk) 18:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
• The 'toll roads' section is unreferenced.
• I-PASS should be I-Pass (no upper cases unless an acronym).
• The 'toll collection' section is almost entirely unreferenced. Several of the claims are very blunt, so they need referencing (such as the penny issue).
• Use "1980s" and "1990s", not "80's" and "90's".
• Are there no images of any of the roads that could be added?
• File:ISTHA Seal.JPG needs a fair use rationale.
  • The page has the standard infobox fair use rationale. Is more needed? Racepacket (talk) 05:16, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
• There is a mixing of month-first and day-first dates.
• "Open Road Tolling program" is either a specific program (and therefore all-caps) or a general program (and therefore non-caps).
• "public-private partnership" should be wikilinked.
• Perhaps add a wikilink to congestion pricing where the issue is discussed.
• Too much of the history section is under 'critisim'. If things just happened (good or bad), they should be in the history section.
• There should be a section on organization, which discusses matters in part left out, in part spread out between the sectiona nd in part located in the lead. Include such things as system length, revenue, management, operations etc.
• Coordinates shouldn't just be dumped into the prose.
• Avoid abbreviations such as 'Gov.'

I am placing the article on hold. Arsenikk ^(talk) 13:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Points addressed and User:Arsenikk notified on Jan. 10, 2010. Racepacket (talk) 05:06, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry about the late reply. The article is looking much better now. A few comments:

• Remember to use {{convert}} when stating units (such as miles) to also print the metric values.(fixed)
• 'Eminent domain' and 'conflict of interest' should be wikilinked. (fixed)
• In general, {{main}} should only be used for whole sections, not parts of sections. (fixed)
• Don't force image size (except maps). (fixed)
• However, the lead should still be a bit longer (for instance a bit more on criticism and new projects) (fixed)
• There are still a few unreferenced statements, for instance the reason for the use of pennies being the state's nickname. (fixed)
• Refs 8 and 9 are not understandable for the lay reader. (fixed)
• The dates in many of the references do not follow standard formatting (using '17th' instead of '17' etc.) (fixed)
• Use the same formatting for published dates as accessdates (preferably spelled-out). (fixed)
• Ref 69 isn't a reference. (fixed)
• A lot of the references are missing author or publisher. (fixed)

Article still on hold. Arsenikk ^(talk) 15:21, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Concerning ref 69: I am not concerned because the coordinate is a note. I was just commenting that a coordinate is not a reference, i.e. despite there being a ref note in the prose, the content was not being referenced. No need to touch the coordinate, just add a reference. Arsenikk ^(talk) 21:00, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations with a good article. One detail I'm not going to bother with, but the refs should not have abbreviated months. Nice if you fix it, but I don't think it strictly falls into the GA criteria. Arsenikk ^(talk) 16:23, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

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Requested move 24 March 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Per minimal participation, this RM is termed as unopposed. (closed by non-admin page mover) ❯❯❯ Raydann^(Talk) 10:21, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

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Illinois State Toll Highway Authority → Illinois Tollway – The term "Illinois Tollway" is more commonly used and more concise versus the "Illinois State Toll Highway Authority", as indicated on Google Trends, the official website, and numerous news/journal outlets ([1], [2], [3], and others). AlphaBeta135talk 22:50, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.