Daily Herald opinion: Making Longmeadow Parkway toll-free will benefit the region

The long wait for the Longmeadow Parkway Bridge to open in northeast Kane County is nearly over. And motorists will not have to pay to use it to cross the Fox River, thanks to state and local leaders who successfully eliminated the need for a toll at the bridge.

“It’s going to be a game changer for people,” Carpentersville Village President John Skillman said of the 5.6-mile stretch of Longmeadow Parkway, which has been in the works for decades and includes the bridge over the Fox.

Last week, our Alicia Fabbre reported the roadway — which will run through portions of Algonquin, Carpentersville, Barrington Hills and unincorporated Kane County — should open sometime in September.

Longmeadow Parkway will help alleviate traffic headaches in the region by providing another way for motorists to cross the Fox. Currently, drivers in the area cross the river using bridges on Route 62 in Algonquin, Route 72 in West and East Dundee or Main Street in Carpentersville.

But funding the project has been a challenge. In spring 2023, questions remained on where the final $35 million would come from. The expectation was that the Longmeadow Parkway Bridge, the final piece of the project, would become a toll bridge. It was a plan that almost no one liked.

Then Kane County announced in June 2023 that it had received an additional $12.5 million in state money to support eliminating a toll on drivers using the Longmeadow Parkway Bridge. The funding, included in the capital bill for Illinois for fiscal year 2024 budget, is in addition to the $17.5 million in state money the county received in fiscal year 2023.

A list of state lawmakers worked to secure the money, including state representatives Suzanne Ness of Crystal Lake and Anna Moeller of Elgin and state senators Cristina Castro of Elgin, Linda Holmes of Aurora and Don DeWitte of St. Charles.

By January, McHenry County had granted $1 million for the project, and Cook County had pledged to contribute another $1 million. Kane County provided the remaining $3 million.

Crews removed two signs related to a toll system at the bridge in late April.

“This is a day we have been waiting for since the idea of a tolling system was introduced,” Kane County Board Chairman Corinne Pierog said when the signs were removed.

“Kane County made a commitment to find the funding necessary to remove this financial burden from motorists,” she added, “and with the generous help from our state lawmakers and our neighboring counties, the toll is permanently gone.”

Pierog and other leaders have every right to take a victory lap.

McHenry County officials have estimated that removing the toll for Longmeadow Parkway could save the average user $200 to $300 a year.

Meanwhile, the history of major road projects in the Chicago area has shown us how difficult it is to eliminate a toll, even one that is supposed to be temporary. The best decision is to not have one in the first place. Now, every motorist in the region can benefit from the game-changing Longmeadow Parkway project.