Illiana Tollway

The Illiana Expressway encountered a potential roadblock in the form of a lawsuit filed last Thursday.

By now, Streetsblog readers know all about how the Illiana Tollway, a proposed highway that will see little use and cost taxpayers $500 million, has messed up our regional plan. Last October, the MPO Policy Committee of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning voted to add the Illiana to the GO TO 2040 plan, allowing the Illinois Department of Transportation to go ahead and build it, even though the project actually works against the plan's goal of focusing growth near existing infrastructure.

The Illiana Tollway is a solution in search of a problem, and the Illinois DOT's final document in preparation to receive federal approval to build the tollway is a case study in backwards transportation planning. IDOT's playbook went like this: Design a new road, have consultants review traffic patterns on existing roads to find issues to underpin the rationale for the new road, then rally political support for the road around those issues.

The nation may be driving less, but Illinois road boosters are still determined to build more highways. The problem for Illinois taxpayers is that it may be impossible to construct these new roads without huge subsidies.

The Illinois Department of Transportation is pushing forward with the risky and unnecessary Illiana Tollway by announcing its "short list" of four finance and construction groups that can build the 35-mile Illinois portion. Streetsblog has reported abundantly from the Illinois perspective -- including a look at IDOT's own analysis showing a net decrease in Illinois jobs as a result of the project. But it's also worth taking a look at how the process -- and the opposition -- have played out in Indiana.

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.