Opponents of the proposed Illiana toll road feared that the huge cost of the estimated $1.5 billion project would eventually fall on the taxpayers of Illinois.
Now that the controversial project appears to be dead, the burden to upgrade local roads to accommodate increasing truck traffic to and from the intermodal centers in Will County will likely shift to the county’s taxpayers.
Those supporting the planned 50-mile toll road between Interstate 55 and I-65 in Indiana contend that it’s needed to relieve the heavy truck traffic on I-80 and on county roads near the giant cargo centers in Joliet and Elwood. They argue the project should be allowed to proceed, and if the private-public partnership envisioned to build it is not realized, then it will die on its own…Please click here to read Susan DeMar Lafferty’s story in the Tribune/Daily Southtown.