Joliet legislator wants trucking fee for road repairs

State Sen. Rachel Ventura, D-Joliet, is pushing for a trucking fee that could generate $38 million a year for local road repairs.

The bill proposed by Ventura would empower municipalities and counties to impose fees that would range between 50 cents and $8 per semitrailer carrying goods from an intermodal yard.

Senate Bill 2784 originally applied to trucks carrying goods from intermodal yards of more than 3,500 acres, which would have specifically applied to the CenterPoint Intermodal Center yards in Joliet and Elwood.

The bill has since been amended so it would apply to smaller intermodal yards around Illinois as well, Ventura said Wednesday.

“We have the highest amount of truck traffic around any intermodal in the entire state,” Ventura said of the effect on roads in her 43rd District.

A state analysis of the effect of the fees showed it would generate $38 million for road repairs in the Joliet area, she said.

The money would be used by the Illinois Department of Transportation for road repairs and improvements.

Intermodal yards provide a location where cargo containers can be transferred from train to trucks as they are transported to warehouses in a logistics network that moves goods from overseas factories to local stores. The CenterPoint Intermodal Center, which includes the Union Pacific intermodal yard in Joliet and the BNSF Railway intermodal yards in Elwood, have made the area the largest inland port in the nation based on the amount of goods being loaded off trains onto trucks.

IDOT is in the midst of a $1.3 billion upgrade of Interstate 80 that in part accommodates the growing amount of truck traffic coming out of the intermodal yards, but also provides the first significant modernization of the interstate through Joliet since it was built in the 1970s.

IDOT also is in the process of upgrading Route 53 through Joliet and Elwood, one of the major routes for trucks coming out of the intermodal yards.

The Houbolt Road bridge over the Des Plaines River, which opened in 2023, was built by a private joint venture partnership that included CenterPoint Properties, at the urging of local and state officials to provide access to the intermodal yards that would keep trucks off local roads.

In a news release announcing the proposed truck fee, Ventura said cargo shipped through the intermodal yards often is moved outside the area, meaning local government gets no tax revenue from the business while trucks create potholes that need to be repaired with local tax dollars.