CMAP

The Illinois Department of Transportation made its case for the Illiana tollway proposal by disseminating half truths and outright lies. At a Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning committee meeting in October where members voted 10-8 in favor of the 47-mile highway, supporters repeatedly referred to IDOT’s claim that the project would create 28,000 jobs. But that number was a lie: The project is in fact projected to create only 940 long-term jobs.

Yesterday, 11 members of the Metropolitan Planning Organization policy committee, including Metra and Pace, voted to add the Illiana Tollway to the GO TO 2040 regional plan. This enables the Illinois DOT and Indiana DOT to move forward with the project approvals necessary to receive federal funds.

The Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Committee, part of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning's governance, poked a billion dollars worth of holes – the estimated amount of public subsidy ranges between $400 million to over $1 billion – in the GO TO 2040 regional plan today by voting to list the Illiana Tollway as a "fiscally constrained" project even after staff found it to be highly incompatible with the plan's focus on development near existing communities and IDOT and analysts said taxpayers would have to pay the private operator for 35 years until the toll revenues can pay the operator.

After discussion that was heated at times, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning board voted ten to four yesterday against including the Illiana Tollway as a fiscally constrained project in the GO TO 2040 regional plan. This advisory vote precedes the MPO policy committee's deciding vote, which was supposed to take place yesterday, but was pushed back to Thursday, October 17 by Illinois Department of Transportation Secretary Ann Schneider. Presumably, this was done to give the state more time to rally support for this 47-mile tollway, which would run south of the urbanized metro region, serving relatively few drivers in the foreseeable future. The project would cost an estimated $2.75 billion, but it's estimated to create only 940 new jobs over the next 40 years, and it would facilitate jobs being moved out of Illinois and into Indiana.

Chicago-area transportation organizations are poised to shoot themselves in the foot and harm the region by allowing the Illinois Department of Transportation Department to squander limited transportation infrastructure funds on the $2.75 billion Illiana Tollway. On Friday the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning's transportation committee voted to recommend moving forward with this wasteful, destructive project, which promises to suck jobs from Illinois and send them to Indiana. It would create only 940 new jobs over the next thirty years.

Illinois Department of Transportation Secretary Ann Schneider has pushed back a crucial vote about the Illiana Expressway a week to October 17. The vote by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning policy committee will decide if building 47 miles of tolled highway south of the urbanized areas of Chicagoland and into Indiana can proceed.

The Metropolitan Planning Council, a non-profit promoting economic development strategies for Chicagoland, has come out strongly against the Illiana Expressway, a 47-mile highway the Illinois Department of Transportation has proposed for the rural communities of southern Will County and northwestern Indiana. MPC released a statement yesterday highlighting numerous shortcomings in IDOT's proposal, including vague financing plans and the overall failure to address the region's transportation needs.

The Illinois Department of Transportation is again seeking the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning's help to build an expensive highway expansion that isn't included in the region's planning blueprint. This time, it's not about a putting a flyover above Halsted Street and a wall in front of people's homes, like the agency plans to do with the Circle Interchange expansion. IDOT, along with the Indiana Department of Transportation, needs approvals from several CMAP committees and the full board so the two agencies can spend $2.75 billion building a brand new four-lane highway in southern Will County.

A fifth Metra board member gave up his post Thursday after the Chicago Tribune wrote that Stanley Rakestraw no longer lived in suburban Cook County  – as required – and the person who appointed him, Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle, asked him to tender resignation. Board members are resigning after allegations of double dipping (for being on two governmental boards simultaneously), patronage hiring and promoting, and for giving former Metra CEO Alex Clifford a severance package potentially worth over $700,000 in exchange for keeping quiet. The full amount would be available to Clifford if he fails to find a new job.