Project: Open Road Tolling Conversion

Jurisdiction: Illinois

Agency: Illinois State Toll Highway Authority

Consultants: Burns & McDonnell's Downers Grove, Ill., (Chicago) office; Kansas City, Mo.-based HNTB

Date completed: February 2007

Cost: $729 million

In fall 2006, Illinois put the final touches on its tollway upgrade that converted traditional barrier-style toll plazas to barrier-free electronic toll collection. By introducing Open Road Tolling (ORT) lanes at all 20 mainline toll plazas in Northern Illinois, the tollway's 1.3 million daily customers now can travel non-stop at highway speed from Wisconsin to Indiana.

Compounded over many decades, traffic congestion had developed into a monumental problem for the Chicago-area tollway as its popularity grew and traffic slowed to a crawl at each toll plaza. Additionally, as much as 65 percent of the aging network had not been renovated since it was built in the late 1950s.

In 2005, the authority kicked off a congestion-relief program, Open Roads for a Faster Future, designed to improve travel times and safety on roadways by rebuilding or restoring the majority of the system and converting all mainline toll plazas to ORT, in which tolls are collected electronically by overhead equipment. The Illinois Tollway launched the $729 million ORT conversion in spring 2005 with the goal of incorporating 116 ORT lanes at 20 toll plazas by the end of 2006.

Burns & McDonnell — program manager of the ORT design and technical support during construction to HNTB, Illinois Tollway program manager and construction manager on the project — worked with 20 consultants to complete design and construction within 22 months. Two to four lanes and overhead ORT sensors were added at each toll plaza, which were revamped to incorporate sustainable design elements such as solar panels and floor-to-ceiling tollbooth windows. Motorists paying with cash exit the mainline to a traditional-style tollbooth and then merge onto the highway.

Chicago-area commuters have widely applauded the benefits of ORT and are saving an average of 10 minutes each way. They also are responding with increased loyalty: approximately 80 percent of daily drivers currently use electronic transponders to pay their tolls — among the highest rate of U.S. tollways. For the marked improvements to the state's tollway operation, the American Council of Engineering Companies of Illinois gave the project an Honor Award in 2007.