Crucial votes loom for Illiana proposal

A showdown looms on the Illiana Corridor, a pet project of Gov. Pat Quinn, who touts the proposed superhighway as a jobs-generating engine for the state’s economy, but which opponents charge could be a billion-dollar boondoggle.

For the past two years, transportation officials from Illinois and Indiana have spent tens of millions of dollars drafting plans for the Illiana, a 47-mile roadway across southern Will County linking Interstate 55 near Wilmington with I-65 near Lowell, Ind.

With a price tag of at least $1.25 billion but no state or federal money earmarked for its construction, officials are proposing that the Illiana be built as a toll road in partnership with private developers, a first-of-its-kind project for Illinois.

A crucial decision on the Illiana is expected Oct. 9 from two important but low-profile governmental panels: the governing board at the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, or CMAP, which oversees northeastern Illinois’ land use and transportation strategy, and a companion board known as the MPO Policy Committee…Please click here to read Richard Wronski’s full story in the Tribune, or here  to read Phil Kadner’s related story in the Southtown Star,”Forgotonia,” featuring the response of  South Suburban elected officials.