IDOT

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.

Funding for major Chicagoland transit projects will be at stake tomorrow, when regional representatives convened by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning vote on whether to move forward with the Illiana Tollway. Even though approving the Illiana will jeopardize CTA and Metra improvements by adding competition for the same pot of funds, all four Chicagoland transit agencies – and the Chicago Department of Transportation – either voted for the project or abstained in an advisory vote earlier this month.

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.

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.

At a community meeting Tuesday at Columbia College, Chicago Department of Transportation Project Director Janet Attarian outlined plans for the new Roosevelt Road streetscape from State Street to Columbus Drive. The project will include a groundbreaking new segment of sidewalk-level, two-way bicycle lane, part of a bike-friendly route to and from the lakefront. The info session, hosted by aldermen Pat Dowell (3rd) and Will Burns (4th), also covered CDOT’s proposal for a new protected bike lane on State Street from 18th Street to 26th Street in Bronzeville – we’ll have a report on that project soon.

An Illinois Department of Transportation employee driving a Ford pickup truck struck a pregnant Divvy rider at around 7 a.m. on Tuesday, September 3, at the intersection of Augusta Boulevard and Ashland Avenue. The 34-year-old victim, who was riding from East Village to work on Michigan Avenue, sustained injuries to her face and body; her pregnancy seems unaffected.

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.

The north portion of Lake Shore Drive, from Grand Avenue to its northern terminus at Hollywood Avenue, will be rebuilt in the next five years. It's a major transportation project and a huge opportunity for Chicago, but will we make the most of it?