Point: I have made all of four trips to Wisconsin in the past 20 years.
Point: An I-Pass costs $30 to set up
Point: An I-Pass requires surrendering personal information to an agency in state that I don’t even reside in.
Point: An I-Pass requires giving an agency in a state I don’t even reside in access to a financial account AND the capacity to remove money from said account automatically.
On what planet does it make sense for me to commit $30 and open-ended access to my bank account when my total tolls over twenty years is less than that sum?
Apparently you mis-understand that this is a business TRIP for a specific and non-repeating project and in no way will constitute a daily commute. If I wind up driving that hellish trip often enough to justify an I-Pass I will frackin’ RELOCATE to Wisconsin rather than make that drive on a regular basis.
Hey, I have an idea! How about the jackholes on the Trollway learn to let people change lanes without getting jollies from screwing with them so us very infrequent travelers can pay our cash tolls?
Frankly, people who think the typical behavior on the Trollway is somehow normal or acceptable need to have their driver’s licenses revoked and submit to re-training before getting them back.
Yesterday, the worst traffic was actually in Milwaukee (Summerfest) and just south of it (bad accident in construction zone). Also had several slow-downs on the Tollway, including a gaper’s delay for a bad accident in the lanes going the other way. Also, some nasty tire marks indicating that earlier someone had lost control while changing lanes and impacted the barrier on the shoulder.
Port Washington was lovely, great town, nice people. Almost didn’t want to leave.
Actually, Illinois and points east all the way to the east coast all share an electronic tolling plan. So your Indiana E-Z Pass works in Illinois as an I-Pass and vice versa (and also works in Pennsylvania, etc). So it’s less about getting an Illinois I-Pass and more about getting an Indiana E-Z Pass.
So… again, for someone for whom YEARS go by between tollway trips, why would I bother with the I-Pass/E-ZPass/whatever? Not everyone uses the tollways on a regular basis.
Honestly, I have no idea how much you travel. I was just pointing out that (A) your complaint about giving Illinois any personal information was unfounded and (B) an electronic tolling device is more handy and flexible than you might think.
Whether or not this inspires you to get one, I guess I don’t care that much if you’d rather snip about it.
Well… I realize I’m a bit late to this party and was going to recommend an I-Pass, but it appears you are a bit opposed to that suggestion.
I use it maybe once or twice per year and it is a godsend. Sure, I gave some horrible Government agency my banking info… and in return I save tons of time on travel. In the 5 years I’ve had it they never exploited this privilege. I just drove to Philly and back and it makes the PA turnpike nice, and I’ll be going to Baltimore and back soon. Any time I’m in the Chicago area I make sure I have it with me. I’ve got little Velcro strips on the windshields of all of my cars so it is simple to just move it from one to the other when I need it.
And that $30 you are worried about… $20 is prepaid tolls, and $10 is a refundable deposit for the unit. Basically it is free and it saves you something like 30% on tolls.
And $30 is about what I spend on groceries in week per person, so I suppose I can just give up 1/4 of my food for a month to pay for it, right? Or maybe ask the other half of the household to give up eating one day in four for a month? Granted, not everyone is as strapped for cash as I am, but that’s another reason I don’t want to pay for this - $30 is a huge expenditure on my budget, one that I will NOT be reimbursed for although my employer has happily agreed to reimburse full-price tolls (in fact, I have already received the reimbursement for the initial trip north - they’re quite efficient about that). It also makes me terrified of giving anyone access to my bank account for any reason - an accidental double-billing or whatever isn’t just an inconvenience, it could easily mean I literally don’t have money for food until it’s resolved, or can’t pay my rent on time, or don’t have money to put gas in my car so I can get to work. Maybe if the consequences for an agency screwing up on billing weren’t so steep for me and mine (meaning, if I had the resources to cover such a thing occurring) I wouldn’t be so opposed to it, but we discontinued ALL automatic bill paying to prevent such problems from occurring. Yes, that means I have to be responsible and remember to pay bills myself, but I don’t have a problem doing that. I also know exactly how much money is in my account at any time, and when that money will be leaving, and how much. It’s one way I survive on a very minimal amount of money.
Now, I am in no way opposed to those who want an I-Pass or find them convenient using them, go right ahead. I’m totally in favor of multiple options for getting the job done and if it works for you that’s fantastic. However, I am getting mighty steamed with the notion that NOT having one is somehow weird or wrong and how it’s becoming inconvenient to pay in legal tender for things. Judging from all the urging to GET AN I-PASS I saw on the tollway the agency in charge pretty much wants to force everyone into their system and screw you if don’t want to fork over X dollars and access to your bank account even if you only use their road once in a decade or two.
So, if you haven’t had a problem that’s fantastic. Apparently some of my neighbors have, and it’s scary enough that no, I don’t want to give the Illinois tollway access to my bank account.
That story involved Indiana residents who purchased I-Pass transponders from the Illinois Tollway folks. There’s zero reason to do that these days since, since then, Indiana changed from its old I-Zoom system to E-ZPass and is now compatible in Illinois.
That’s nothing unique to Illinois. All the states offering electronic tolling want you to use a transponder. It’s much cheaper than paying some state employee to sit in a box collecting quarters or repairing the change buckets after some numbnut threw a wad of gum into it. Also handles traffic flow much better than rows of people waiting at gates.
That said, if you don’t want a transponder from any state then don’t get one. Part of the cost of that decision is learning to stay in the right lanes on the tollways for easier merging to the cash tolls.
First, an IPass soes not require automatic access to your bank account. You can opt to refill it manually (well, online, but it won’t do automatic deducations.)
If you want to bypass Chicago altogether, go west on I 80, then north on I 39 to Rockford. At Rockford 39 hooks up with I 90. When you get up to Beloit switch to I 43, which heads northeast into Milwaukee.
I’ve used this route coming up from Chicago to Madison many times, but it’s not nearly so out of the way for me because I don’t have to go back nearly as far to the east as you do.
One somewhat zany idea for future… it wouldn’t be too hard to get from NW Indiana to Milwaukee by train. Since the Amtrak Hiawatha lets off at the Milwaukee airport, renting a car once you’re there would be easy (and hopefully cheap.) Depending on how the South Shore and Amtrak schedules line up, it might take a bit longer and would certainly cost a bit more than driving yourself, but it’d be much more pleasant!
Oh, you could also take 39/90 all the way up to Madison, have dinner with me, then head east tword the lake via any number fo routes. I would pick 151, which heads northeast all the way to the lake.
I dunno how much extra time all this would take, but I can assure you that traffic volume is WAY lower.
I’m generally in the same boat as you, but the last time I tried to use the IN Tollway for cash, I got stuck in a line for the one manned booth for TWO HOURS. That was enough convincing for me.
Looks like there’s a bunch of free parking at the East Chicago South Shore Line station, which is just north of Highland. I think the only real tricky part (other than finding a cheap rental car in Milwaukee) is that the Amtrak station is about a mile away from the SSL station in Millennium Park, so you’d either have a nice brisk walk or you could take the El.
I’d be all for it - but my employer will not cover a rental car and wants me to have my own transportation while up there. Which is why they’re compensating me for driving myself up there.
Really, taking a train (or plane) up there would be my preference, but it’s not my decision.
What would have been MOST useful to someone who hadn’t taken the toll road for 20 years is someone saying “hey, stay in the far right lane for greatest likelihood of being able to reach the cash toll booth. And if you do miss a toll, you can pay on line with no penalty as long as you do it within 7 days.”
Or maybe a sign to that effect somewhere prominent: “Suggest those paying cash stay in right lane” or something.
Really, the “get an I-Pass” take, while useful for someone intending frequent future tollway riding, is not helpful to the very occasional or unfamiliar driver. There seems to be this assumption that everyone on the Tollway is a frequent flyer there and will automatically know things, like “stay in right lane if you’re paying cash”. Honestly, there is no other tollway I’ve been on in the past two decades where that’s the case to the same degree as the Illinois Tollway.
It is not at all user-friendly to the casual user. Perhaps that’s the intention?
Is there a particular reason you have to take the traditional highways? I can drive through about any state on the back roads without all the bullshit and still cruise at 55 mph between towns. You won’t necessarily save time but you’ll save your sanity.