BY MELANIE CSEPIGA, Times of Northwest Indiana Correspondent
SOUTH LAKE COUNTY | Getting from here to there may get easier as the governor steers the state toward the Illiana Expressway, but not all local leaders are in love with the idea.
"Thirty-five years ago when the talks began, they could have cut a swath south of Crown Point, but with all the high-end development, it (the expressway's route) has moved south," Lowell Town Council President David Gard, D-5th, said Tuesday.
Gard said the revised route, which calls for connecting Interstate 57 in Illinois with Interstate 65, the Indiana Toll Road, and Interstate 94 in Michigan City, is not a good one.
"It appears that it would skim the edge of Freedom Park. That would be devastating," Gard said. "Putting an expressway the distance of a well-driven golf ball from the park would be a disaster."
Freedom Park is a 114-acre recreational area under development by the town of Lowell and West Creek and Cedar Creek townships.
Lowell Councilman Phillip Kuiper, D-4th, agrees.
"We already have one state highway going through our town. We're not interested in another one," Kuiper said. "I know the challenges that a state highway brings."
He also worries about it being too close to Freedom Park.
The two Lowell councilmen, however, say they agree with the concept of an east-west expressway to relieve traffic congestion on the Borman Expressway.
Cedar Lake Councilman Greg Wornhoff, R-3rd, has been a longtime proponent of the Illiana Expressway and the advantages it could bring to his community. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday.