Will County likes Illiana route

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Updated: March 15, 2012 8:08AM

A tentative preferred route chosen for the Illiana Expressway will be good for Will County, officials said Monday.

The Illiana Corridor Planning Group announced last week that it was recommending a route that would start at Interstate 65 between Cedar Lake and Lowell in Indiana and end at Interstate 55 near Wilmington.

“I think it’s a good route,” Will County Engineer Bruce Gould said. “Of the routes they had, it seems like this one had the least amount of environmental impact and it seemed the least intrusive.”

The route, called B3, also seemed the most direct, he added.

After more public hearings, a final route could be chosen by the end of 2012 and construction could start in 2015, officials said.

If and when the much-anticipated route is built, it will greatly reduce traffic on Will County roads, Gould said.

“Obviously, it’s going to take a tremendous amount of truck traffic off the local roads and put it on the Illiana,” Gould said. “It will be a tremendous benefit to Will County as far as the traffic patterns.”

Construction of the Illiana would alleviate truck traffic from the Joliet and Elwood intermodals, which now uses Routes 53 and 45, and Wilmington-Peotone and Laraway roads, Gould explained.

Will County officials didn’t take formal action favoring or opposing any of the routes, but county officials met with transportation officials recently to narrow the choices, Gould said.

A northern route would have been too costly to construct because of all of the development that has taken place in Will County in recent years, said Nick Palmer, chief of staff for Will County Executive Larry Walsh.

A southern route would not have generated the toll revenue needed to make the Illiana viable, Palmer added. Route B3 was “just right,” he said.

“It’s not so far removed from people that people aren’t going to use it.

The route — along with three others — will be presented for comment at public meetings at 5 p.m. Feb. 22 at Crown Point High School in Crown Point, Ind., and Feb. 23 in Matteson. Officials from the Indiana and Illinois departments of transportation will be on hand to answer questions.

The proposed B3 route received the largest amount of public support at meetings so far, and officials say that it will likely cost the least to construct, in part because it requires fewer miles of utility relocation and affects far fewer property owners than a more northern route.

The B3 route does have some limitations, such as low potential toll revenue. Other routes are still in contention, but they each have their drawbacks.

The A route alternatives — some of which start as far north as Merrillville — impact more homeowners, offer fewer opportunities for expansion, and impact more utilities. One advantage would be high toll revenue.

The C route alternative is located in the Kankakee River flood plain and it would be a longer trip from I-65 to I-55 due to the design of I-55 in that area. Also, there’s a nuclear plant on the Illinois side that the road would have to avoid.

Visit www.illianacorridor.org for more on the road plan.

Post-Tribune reporter Christin Nance Lazerus contributed to this report.