BY BILL DOLAN, Times of Northwest Indiana
bdolan@nwitimes.com
Congressional talk of a $700 billion stimulus package to create jobs and revive the national economy has at least motivated some speculation about whether it could reanimate the South Shore Railroad expansion or the Illiana Expressway.
Finding money for those public works projects would seem doomed in the face of the current credit crunch and recession.
Jacob Ritvo, spokesman for Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., said Washington might push hundreds of billions of dollars into road construction and other infrastructure projects, but no one is talking about a giveaway. The old rules still apply, no federal dollars without the local government picking up at least a fraction of the cost.
The state and Northwest Indiana still have to come up with $350 million in state tax money to match $150 million pledged by the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority and $500 million in anticipated federal dollars to extend South Shore tracks south to Lowell and Valparaiso.
State Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, recently said, "I represent the southern part of Lake County, and didn't hear anyone screaming to tax us more down there," Soliday said.
The Illiana Expressway, a highway that would loop from Chicago's southern suburbs east through Lake County to link with Interstate 65, could receive renewed interest next year when a long-awaited feasibility study is made public.
But Soliday said no study can dispel the current economic gloom. "The (Gov. Mitch) Daniels administration likes an Illiana Expressway, but they want it privately funded, and money isn't exactly flowing at the moment."
Nevertheless, state Rep. Chet Dobis, D-Merrillville, a key advocate of the South Shore expansion, wants to keep pushing in the next Indiana General Assembly session. "My personal philosophy is that when times are bad, you don't wait for them to get better. You make them better," Dobis said.
Soliday said, "There are a number of folks in Washington right now lining up for money. Several of them are involved in road construction and are advocating somewhere in the $10 billion to $20 billion allocated for road construction and infrastructure.
"Whether that would apply to the Illiana Expressway, I have some doubts." He said businesses like the Spanish-Australian consortium Macquarie-Cintra, which is leasing the Indiana Toll Road, might eventually raise the capital to build an Illiana Toll Road in better times.
It would still have to overcome opposition from a number of community activists who denounced the Illiana in 2007 when Daniels was taking the public's pulse on the topic.
One of them, Rev. Asher Harris of the Northwest Indiana Interfaith Federation and a member of the Northwest Indiana Regional Bus Authority, remains opposed.
"There is so much farmland that would be affected by it and we need the farmland. Its been proven through studies that expressways like the Illiana will not relieve congestion in Northwest Indiana. The Illiana would be a good link for Peotone Airport, and we want to see the Gary airport thrive," Harris said.
Soliday said, "People who speak loudly about the Illiana speak of it as if it's a solution to something happening at this moment. It's not. It's about the future. With the drainage issues we've had with the Borman, you can't add more lanes to it, and half the traffic going through Northwest Indiana isn't stopping at Chicago. If you can divert that way south, its a rational solution."
Harris said he isn't as adverse to the South Shore expansion. "My concern is sprawl. If they extend the line to Lowell, sprawl will go with it. But as long as there is some contact with the Gary Airport, then we are not really opposed to a South Shore extension."
Soliday said the state officials who refuse to invest in the South Shore expansion are being short-sighted. "It brings $265 million back into the state. This is revenue positive. We'd like the state to lend us part of our own sales tax money to get this started."