Illinois trucking company says 30% toll increase is a “miserable blow” to smaller companies

The president of an Illinois trucking company is calling the recently passed toll hike a “miserable blow for his company and other companies like his. 

The state of Illinois passed a bill on October 31st that will raise tolls on the Illinois Tollway for commercial vehicles by  30% starting January 1st, 2027. Increases will continue every other year starting in 2029. The raise will generate $1 billion for the tollway. 

“When I woke up on Friday (Oct. 31) they handed me a $360,000 cost increase,” said Moran, president of Elk Grove Village-based Moran Transportation Corp. “No notice, no word, no nothing. It’s the largest single cost increase I’ve seen from any vendor in 46 years of business.”

“This was a miserable blow,” he said to Daily Herald. “If I want to survive, my rates are going up significantly.”

“It’s punishing businesses,” he continued. “I’ve already talked to my biggest, largest customers, and said, ‘Hey prepare for a huge increase. That means every gallon of milk, every widget that’s out there. If you buy something at the store, it’s moved by truck 10, 20, 50 different times.”

“The tollway money is staying in the tollway,” Chicago Democratic state Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado said of the raise. “They haven’t seen an increase in about 13 years and the tollway system in Illinois is underpriced in comparison to the other systems that are comparable to ours.”

“So for that trucker who depends on the tollway to be safe and get them to where they need to be, that investment in the infrastructure is going to be incredibly important for them.”

Mora says he expects that “more carriers are going to go out of business.” He also says that smaller side roads may see more truck traffic as smaller companies do their best to avoid the toll roads.