Illiana Tollway
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Will Transit Reps Repeat Their Misguided Support for the Illiana Tomorrow?
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.
October 16, 2013
CMAP Board, Voting Down Illiana, Tells How IDOT Is Witholding Funds
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.
October 10, 2013
Metra and Pace Vote For Transit-Crushing Illiana Tollway in Advisory Meeting
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.
October 8, 2013
As IDOT Postpones Illiana Vote, Planners Say the Region Doesn’t Need It
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.
September 27, 2013
MPC: Funding the Illiana Expressway Would Be a Big Mistake
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.
September 5, 2013
IDOT Prepares to Ram Through Another Expensive Highway Project
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.
August 20, 2013