Daily Southtown
Nov. 15, 2007
BY GUY TRIDGELL
Staff writer
Now that it has finished one road project beset with planning delays and funding challenges, the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority is preparing to tackle another: the Illiana Expressway.
The tollway authority's board today announced plans to launch an exploratory committee to research ways to build the proposed expressway connecting Interstate 57 near Crete with Interstate 65 near Crown Point, Ind.
"Like any project, it takes consensus, it takes political will, it takes leadership," tollway authority executive director Brian McPartlin said. "There is a lot of support, there is a lot of interest and desire."
Moving ahead with the Illiana Expressway will require cooperation from the Illinois and Indiana departments of transportation, which are the lead agencies on the project.
Tollway board member Jim Roolf suggested the plans should expand to extend the road even farther west to Interstate 55 near Elwood. Roolf said he envisions a massive suburban expressway ring by eventually linking the Illiana Expressway with the Prairie Parkway, a planned route connecting Interstates 88 and 80 in Kane, Kendall and Will counties.
"The tollway is up to another project - and a big project," Roolf said. "I think we have to seriously look at this."
Waiting will only make construction more expensive because development threatens to drive up land costs, he said.
Roolf said this week's successful opening of the Interstate 355 south extension between Bolingbrook and New Lenox - a project that finished on time and on budget - proves the tollway authority is capable of doing more.
"Success breeds success," he said.
Roolf, who represents Will County on the tollway authority board, was interested in extending I-355 farther south to I-57, but he conceded today extensive development in New Lenox, Frankfort and Mokena likely will prohibit that project from happening.