I-55 toll lane expansion no sure thing despite taking a step forward in Springfield
“You do need to reach some consensus about this,” Pritzker said, adding that he was “still studying the matter” and hadn’t “made a decision about how to proceed.”
The project appeared poised to pick up speed under Gov. Bruce Rauner in 2016 as part of the one-term Republican’s largely unsuccessful efforts to privatize functions of state government. A major factor was the Rauner administration’s effort to tie conversations about funding major infrastructure improvements to his proposals to weaken protections for labor unions under state law, said Marc Poulos, executive director of the Indiana, Illinois, Iowa Foundation for Fair Contracting and a lobbyist for Local 150.
“Why do we keep taking our money and investing in a project in California and in Virginia and in Florida and in Texas?” he said. “Why aren’t we investing your own money here … and then having your own workforce work on it?” “It’s a temporary fix,” said Lou Turner, an assistant professor in the University of Illinois’ Department of Urban and Regional Planning. “And then increases. It kind of fills back in.”
The project also raises the issue of potentially bringing more cars through areas such as Little Village, a heavily Latino enclave that already suffers from poor air quality and high rates of respiratory illness. “We’re never going to be able to build highways or streets that are wide enough to accommodate the number of cars that we’d need if cars are the only option,” he said.The question is how to move people while minimizing negative effects, said Audrey Wennink, transportation director for the Metropolitan Planning Council. Both the CTA Orange Line and Metra’s Heritage Corridor run in the area around I-55, and both could stand to be improved through additional investment.
“The concerns that we now have about environmental justice and about the climate emissions from highway expansions are new to the Illinois General Assembly, and therefore when these issues came up very late in the session, legislators haven’t had the experience in dealing with them,” Darin said.
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