I live near where I-90 leaves MN. I haven’t researched the route in the Chicago vicinity.
Brian
IMHO, your best route is to take 90 to 294, then 294 around. Just try to hit 80/94 on a weekend going east, and NOT Sunday afternoon going west, and avoid 294, 80/94 at anything resembling rush hour. I’d recommend before 7 AM or after 7 PM. Hope you like trucks! Just no easy way around it.
The Kansas Turnpike recently switched to a similar system. You are charged in accordance to the mileage you have driven on the roadway. If you have a K-Tag or similar sticker, you are billed automatically. If you don’t, you’ll receive a bill in the mail and can pay online. No stopping to grab a ticket or pay a toll, like it was in the past. Using the sticker gives you a discount as well.
Big Brother is always watching us. Even more so now.
And no more having to go back and get a shitload of dimes.
Heh. We were never that advanced in Kansas. There were toll collectors at every exit. You took a ticket when you got on the pike, handed the ticket to the collector when you exited, and they told you what you owed.
Not sure if it is a tall-tale but I was told (a few decades ago now) that out east (NJ Turnpike?..not sure) that they did the bit where you got a ticket when you got on and then paid when you got off. The shitty part, I was told, is they figured out this would catch speeders too. They knew where you got on and off and there was a time stamp so it was trivial to calculate your average speed. If it was some amount over the speed limit you had to pay the toll and then also got handed a speeding ticket. As a result, you’d often see people pulled over on the shoulder to wait out some time before exiting.
This is correct for the Illinois Tollway system. While the Skyway accepts I-Pass, it’s a separate system – I rarely take the Skyway, so I can’t vouch for what they are doing these days.
The Illinois Tollway temporarily closed the cash lanes in March of 2020, due to COVID. Though the initial plan seemed to have been to re-open the cash lanes once the infection issue was no longer a concern, they changed the plan, and the cash lanes are now permanently closed. So, the only options now are an electronic pass, or pay-by-plate, as noted.
The East Germans did that too on the pre-unification highway which was the only connection between West Germany and Berlin (103 miles). Time check at (the only) entrance and (the only) exit. Too fast - not normally a problem (but there were sporadic patrols), but too slow - maybe you had stopped along the way (forbidden) and did some “spying”.
When the Kansas Turnpike opened in 1956, speed limits were 80 mph. That was extremely fast for that day and age.
My father was a traveling salesman and he swore Oklahoma did the same thing on the Will Rogers and Turner Turnpikes (which eventually became part of I-44.) I’ve also heard the same story about the Ohio Turnpike. I suspect the story had to be true somewhere, even if it was only a legend on other toll roads.
Side note: for many years the Rogers Turnpike had the largest over-the-highway rest stop restaurant in the world, so Dad would stop there, get gas, eat a leisurely lunch, and resume speeding the rest of the way,