The Illiana Expressway, also known as the Illiana Corridor, was a controversial proposed toll road in northeastern Illinois and northwestern Indiana. Formal environmental impact statement studies were begun in April 2011 and were led jointly by the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT). It was planned as being approximately in length, mostly in Illinois, connecting Interstate 55 (I-55) in Illinois to I-65 in Indiana. The freeway was scheduled to open in 2018. However, construction plans were shelved in 2015 when Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner issued an executive order delaying the construction of new highways in the state.
Route description
The proposed route of the Illiana Expressway would have placed it between Interstate 55 in Illinois and Interstate 65 in Indiana, passing just south of the Joliet Army Ammunition Plant.
History
Origins
The vision of the Illiana Corridor dates back to the 1909 Plan of Chicago by Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett that included an "Outer Encircling Highway" serving northeastern Illinois and northwest Indiana. Conceptual highway corridors linking Illinois and Indiana south of Interstate 80 were also studied by regional planning agencies in both states in the 1960s and 1970s. More recently, feasibility studies for a potential Illiana expressway were completed in 2009 by Indiana and a supplemental study in 2010 by Illinois. These showed that transportation improvements could be possible, and set the stage for formal studies.
Following completion of these studies, a memorandum of understanding was signed on June 9, 2010 by the Governors of Illinois and Indiana, which formalized the partnership between the two states for planning a potential new transportation linkage. Recently enacted legislation in both states also allows a "public private partnership" or "P3", which allows private sector financing for constructing or operating a transportation facility.
Planning
The Illiana Expressway would become the third east–west expressway to connect northeastern Illinois and northwest Indiana. In 1953, the Kingery-Borman expressway combination opened. Subsequently a part of Interstate 80, this route would become part of one of the most important coast-to-coast Interstate highways in the United States. The Chicago Skyway opened five years later, on April 16, 1958. With the newly opened Indiana Toll Road, the Skyway and Toll Road became part of a second coast-to-coast Interstate highway, as Interstate 90 ran through the city of Chicago proper.
The Skyway-Indiana Toll Road combination paralleled the shoreline of Lake Michigan, and was a popular road until the Dan Ryan Expressway opened in 1962, with Interstate 80/94 providing a free route from Chicago to northwestern Indiana. Ideas for an east-west limited access highway further south, connecting southern Lake County Indiana with Will County Illinois, have been studied by transportation planners in efforts prior to the current Illiana Corridor Study, notably by the following: South Suburban Freeway Study (Murphy Engineering, 1972); I-80/I-94 Congestion Relief Study (Wilbur Smith, 1992); Northwest Indiana Corridor Study (Burgess & Niple, 2000); and the South Suburban Airport (Tier One/Tier Two) (AECOM, 2002/In Progress).
In June 2010, governors Pat Quinn of Illinois and Mitch Daniels of Indiana formally initiated development of an Illiana Expressway under the heading of the "Illiana Corridor". The Illiana was first proposed a public-private partnership in which private investors would provide the capital funding for the road's construction in exchange for toll revenues, although those terms have more recently been changed to include significant upfront investment of public funds. The two states' transportation departments were charged with examining potential routes and proposing one through the formal federal interstate-highway planning process. In late 2012, the bi-state planning group released a draft Tier 1 environmental impact statement which was made final in January 2013. The Tier 2 process, which was initiated in January 2013 and concluded in September 2014, focused on the specific route for the project. The route, as specified in that report, would have run from Wilmington, Illinois to a point on I-65 east of Lowell, Indiana.