By Dan Carden, Times of Northwest Indiana
dan.carden@nwi.com
INDIANAPOLIS | Legislation allowing the Illiana Expressway to be privately built and operated as a toll road was filed Tuesday in both the Indiana House and Senate.
The proposed toll road has gotten longer. Proponents now envision the road stretching from Interstate 65 in Lake County west to Interstate 55, southwest of Joliet, in Illinois. Earlier plans had the road ending at Interstate 57, about 20 miles away.
State Reps. Chet Dobis, D-Merrillville, and Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, are working to win House approval of the authorizing legislation. House Bill 1312 puts the Illiana on the same footing as Interstate 69, public-private partnership roads that can be built and run by a private operator.
"If and when someone came along as an investor, the legislative work will be done, and we can move forward," Soliday said. "Otherwise, it's all 'what if.' "
Both lawmakers said no specific route has been selected, and no specific operator is pushing for the road to be built. The state would keep ownership of the land under the road.
"Once we pass this and word gets out to potential investors, we'll probably have a plethora of bids," Dobis said. "There's a lot of loose money out there just waiting to be spent."
That's good news to labor unions in Indiana and Illinois, which hope an Illiana project will put their members to work. Dobis said organized labor has "total support" for the proposal.
"Combine this with the Cline project, and you're talking real jobs; high-paying union jobs for people who are in desperate need of work, that could have work for a long time," Dobis said.
Indiana is expected to spend tens of millions of dollars to replace or build a substitute for the Cline Avenue bridge in East Chicago that's been closed for safety reasons since November.
Beyond jobs, safety is a second reason to build the Illiana, Soliday said.
"If we wind up with heavy snow or flooding, which has happened and could happen again, we literally shut down commerce and through traffic in Northwest Indiana," Soliday said. "We need a reliever."
The more southerly route of the Illiana would not be vulnerable to the Little Calumet River, which flooded the region and shut down the Borman Expressway in 2008.
Dobis said he's been in touch with the staff of U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson, D-Illinois, who's attending to federal issues with the Illiana. Democratic Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has also said the Illiana is a priority.
State Sen. Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso, is the Senate sponsor. Senate Bill 382 is identical to the House measure, Dobis said.