Illinois trucking companies are thrilled to start paying a 100 percent increase in the state's gas tax. Why? It swaps a fee that supported the state’s overall finances for a tax that ultimately benefits the industry’s bottom line.

The $45 billion capital plan passed by the General Assembly doubles the gas tax from 19 cents to 38 cents a gallon—the first hike in nearly three decades—and ties it to inflation. The rate for drivers of diesel-powered commercial trucks rises even higher, to 45.5 cents a gallon. The plan pays for infrastructure improvements like roads, bridges and transit systems.

Trucking employs nearly 77,000 in Illinois, the third-largest cluster in the country after Texas and California. About 57,000 in metro Chicago work in the industry.

Although the tax raises costs for the state’s trucking companies, improving the quality of roads and bridges means truckers can move freight faster, said Jason Hilsenbeck, president of short-distance trucking directory Drayage.com and LoadMatch, a site connecting truckers and shippers. Truckers pushed to raise the gas tax as long as it was guaranteed to go toward infrastructure upgrades, he said. The Illinois constitution was amended in 2016 to do that.

“The more freight they can haul quicker, the more money they can make,” Hilsenbeck said. “If they’re faster to pick up and deliver, they actually can recover the cost of that fuel increase.”

The bill that raised the gas tax also repealed the commercial distribution fee, a victory for the Illinois Trucking Association. Executive Director Matt Hart called the repeal the organization’s "No. 1 priority" since the General Assembly approved the fee 15 years ago.

Unlike 94 percent of fees paid to the state, the commercial distribution fee went into the Illinois general fund. Truck drivers or companies pay $3,190 for a license plate, with $400 of the cost going to the commercial distribution fee. The fee brought in $56 million in fiscal 2018, down from $89 million the first year it was implemented.

“The CDF has never paid for a road,” Hart said. “It was very important to the trucking industry that before we would pay more into the motor fuel taxes, we would have to get rid of this bad fee.”

The commercial distribution fee ends next year. The cost of plating a semi-truck will fall to $2,890, a savings of $300 per truck.