By Eric Berman
1/19/2010
A highway project shelved by the legislature three years ago is back in the fast lane.
In 2007, Governor Daniels suggested a public-private partnership to build a new tollway in northwest Indiana. The Illiana Expressway proposal came just a year after the controversial lease of the Indiana Toll Road. A combination of landowners unhappy about possible routes and anger over another privately-run highway sank the idea.
Now a Senate committee has approved it unanimously, and Gary Senator Earline Rogers expects the proposal to encounter little opposition en route to Daniels' desk.
"After Major Moves and the lease of the Toll Road, I think people have seen that work very well, and some of the concerns that were expressed then are no longer concerns," Rogers predicts.
Rogers and then-Indianapolis Sen. Glenn Howard were the only Democrats to vote for the Toll Road lease.
The Illiana Expressway bill authorizes the state to charge tolls on the new road and to recruit a private partner to build it.
The bill does not specify a route -- that would be up to INDOT. The general idea behind the road has been for an eight-lane highway sweeping south of the congestion on I-80/94, and linking up 30 miles later with I-57 in Illinois.
Daniels' original plan in 2007 envisioned both the northwest Indiana expressway and a highway dubbed the Indiana Commerce Connector, creating a second beltway east and south of Indianapolis, outside I-465. That road, too, would have been privately run. A bill authorizing both roads passed the Senate, but Daniels withdrew the proposal after it stalled in the House amid vocal opposition from residents of the two areas.
Thsi year's bill addresses only the Illiana proposal. The bill is co-authored by Sen. Ed Charbonneau (R-Valparaiso), Senate Transportation Chairman Tom Wyss (R-Fort Wayne) and Rogers.
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