Illiana demise ought not be a surprise. Will Will County airport be next?

I fully expect that anything former Gov. Pat Quinn publicly supported, current Gov. Bruce Rauner is going to oppose. They’re like a pair of temperamental 8-year-olds.

So I wasn’t shocked to learn that Rauner’s first actions included putting a halt to any planning for interstate construction. That includes the proposed Illiana Expressway that Quinn always touted any time he was on the South Side or surrounding suburbs.

BECAUSE THERE, LOCAL officials perceive construction of an interstate highway stretching from Interstate 65 near Lowell, Ind., to Interstate 55 near Wilmington (which is just south of Joliet) as being a source of jobs and a way to spur future economic development south of the city.

Bringing up Illiana, along with construction of a new airport in the farm fields of rural Will County north of Peotone, was always a way for Quinn to get cheers and applause – along with votes.

If all of Illinois had voted like the South Side and south suburbs, Quinn would have kicked Rauner’s behind back on Election Day last year.

But they didn’t, and Quinn didn’t. We have “Gov. Rauner” now, and he said during the campaign he doesn’t think much of the Illiana project (and the third airport, either).

SO NOW, ILLINOIS is doing a financial review. Rauner aides say it’s about fiscal responsibility and making sure money is not being wasted during construction.

Although I suspect it’s also about not expending too much state effort on parts of the state that weren’t all that supportive of the Rauner campaign during the election cycle. Seriously, some of those suburbs in Thornton and Bloom townships gave up to 90 percent of their voter support to Quinn.

So this is a political move all too similar to the way past politicos have operated. Not exactly conduct becoming of someone who claims to be the “nobody” that “nobody sent.”

Although since Rauner was clear during the campaign cycle that he didn’t support Illiana, I don’t think we have much of a right to be shocked and appalled that he would make its demise one of his first actions.

EVEN THOUGH THAT demise now leaves unanswered a very serious question – what will be done to alleviate the congested mess that occurs all too frequently on Interstate 80 just south of Chicago proper?

That road is heavily used by truckers shipping goods from other parts of the country into Chicago. Anyone who has ever driven on the interstate near the Illinois/Indiana border knows how nerve-wracking it can be to get caught up in a truck-laced traffic jam.

One of the purposes of the Illiana proposal is to give those freight trucks that are merely passing through metro Chicago (and not specifically stopping here) an alternate route to alleviate the Interstate 80 traffic.

Now that Rauner is moving in ways to obliterate the Illiana (although Indiana state officials say they’re prepared to build their portion of the road regardless of Illinois’ problems with the project), it will be interesting to see how the new governor addresses the traffic congestion problem.

BECAUSE THE ISSUE is not going away. It is a serious one. It is not something Rauner can ignore. If he does, he will be messing with the transportation of goods into and out of the Chicago area, which impacts the state’s economic bottom line!

 I’d like to think Rauner knows better. Although the idea of a politician causing problems inadvertently because of their desire to oppose something or someone (Quinn??!?) else is nothing new in Illinois.

It is likely the third airport concept could meet a similar fate, although that is a Federal Aviation Administration project and the federal government has final say over whether it proceeds.

But federal officials have said before they want local support for the airport project, which means Rauner apathy could cause them to lose good will – and the southern part of metro Chicago could wind up losing its two major projects meant to bolster the local economy.

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The latest urban vs. rural spat – how fast can Chicago-area motorists drive?

It has been more than a decade since I regularly rode the interstates between Springfield and Chicago. Yet one of my lasting memories of the three-hour drive each way was that moment when I entered the greater Chicago area.

QUINN: Squabbling over speed

It was the point in Will County when the landscape went from rural to suburban – and the speed limits suddenly dropped (if driving toward Chicago) from 65 miles an hour down to 55.

IT WAS JUST a given that when the state of Illinois increased the speed limits from the traditional 55 mph (and telephone calls used to cost a dime) to 65, the higher limit only applied to the portions of interstate highways that were in rural parts of the state.

The areas where there wasn’t as much traffic – or what traffic there was merely passed through the area without making stops – were allowed to drive at the faster rate.

It also meant that someone could literally go from doing the speed limit to exceeding it by 10 miles an hour – and could get a ticket for speeding if an Illinois state trooper just happened to be in the area.

If anything, the fact that troopers liked to hang out in the area to bolster their traffic citations issued was the sudden warning that one had to slow down their vehicles to accommodate the slower speed limit meant for urban areas.

BUT THINGS COULD change. Or maybe not. We’re going to see in coming weeks what will become of our interstate speed limits.

For Gov. Pat Quinn this week signed into law a measure that boosts the speed limit to 70 miles an hour – although only on the rural portions of interstate highways. To listen to Quinn, the speed limit remains 55 on urban and suburban-area highways.

Although in what has become the latest urban/rural political spat, we have the state legislator who crafted the increase (state Sen. James Oberweis, R-Sugar Grove) claiming he meant for the change in law to be truly statewide.

OBERWEIS: Statewide attention?

A sudden surge from 55 to 70 – once the new law takes effect Jan. 1.

THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES reported that the new law may bolster the speed limit on all parts of the interstates in Illinois. But it also cited an “opt-out” provision that allows officials in the urban-area counties (Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will) to exclude themselves from a 70 mile-an-hour speed limit.

Although there are those officials who think that that counties don’t have jurisdiction over interstates, no matter what any opt-out provision says. There also seems to be confusion amongst county officials as to just what the law says.

Nobody seems to know what the new law says. Which could make the whole concept so confusing that it can’t even stand up in court. Who knows what will happen?

Although the idea that drivers need to slow up their vehicles once they get into the Chicago area is such an entrenched concept in Illinois that the Quinn interpretation of the law is the one that is consistent with the way things are done in Lincoln’s land.

UNLESS THE TRUE intent of this new law was a desire to force some rural standard down the collective throat of the state’s urban majority. In which case, it is nothing more than a politically partisan stunt.

There is, of course, the bottom line that makes the idea of legally whizzing through Chicago at 70 miles an hour nothing more than a fantasy.

With the way Chicago roads are perpetually under construction and repair, there’s just no way anyone is going to seriously get their cars going anywhere near 70. If anything, their cars will creep along at 20 miles an hour while he drivers see the speed limit signs and dream about getting up to 55 – let alone 70.

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High-speed rail a nice dream

It’s nice to hear that President Barack Obama is willing to consider the concept of high-speed railroad connecting our cities. It really would be a better alternative than having to use airplanes for short trips, and more relaxing than having to drive.

Is there really a purpose to catching a flight from St. Louis to Chicago (I can’t envision anyone seriously wanting to make that trip in reverse) when a train on significantly improved tracks could travel that route in not much more time?

SO IT WAS encouraging to learn that Obama wants $8 billion put aside, with the chance of $5 billion more during the next five years. Money will come from the economic stimulus package that is supposed to give the U.S. economy a jolt and put people back to work.

I’m curious to see where in this country the federal government first experiments with the idea. I understand officials in California think a line connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco (and potentially shooting north up to Portland and Seattle) ought to be the first, while others would like to see the Washington to New York corridor be the first line for trains that could travel in excess of 100 mph (as opposed to the official Amtrak speed of 79 mph, but in some places on decrepit track they have to slow down to as little as 10 mph).

But let me throw my plug in for Chicago, the one-time hub of the railroad transportation system back in the days when most people took trains and still a significant city due to O’Hare International Airport’s role in U.S. flight connections.

I could easily see Chicago as the center of a railroad spider of sorts, with the arms shooting out in all directions and connecting the city to places such as St. Louis, Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Madison, Detroit and Indianapolis (along with a series of medium-sized towns that lie in between).

MY PERSONAL BIAS would be a route connecting Chicago to St. Louis. That trip (along with visits to places that lie along the route) is one I would make if the travel time factor could be reduced.

Now for those who argue that Amtrak already has service connecting those municipalities, I’d have to ask if you have ever taken that particular trip.

Personally, I haven’t traveled that route on train in about four years – the last time I made the trip to Springfield for a couple of days.

I remember my train left Chicago on schedule and arrived at the train station about one block from the Statehouse in Springfield only about 10 minutes later than the scheduled time. Amtrak worked that day the way it was supposed to.

WHICH MEANS WE are talking about a 3.5-hour-long train ride.

I know from personal experience from the seven years I lived in Springfield that I could make the same trip by car (on an interstate highway that parallels the tracks used by Amtrak for much of the route) in about three hours.

I’d like it if a train ride could cut the amount of time spent en route. And for those who will argue they like to drive, I find hours of driving to be headache inducing. I’d enjoy it if the trip to a place like Springfield were only a 1.5-hour-long ride.

And if a trip to St. Louis only took about two hours (as opposed to the roughly 4.5 hours it now takes on Amtrak), perhaps I’d be more inclined to travel to that city (a personal disclosure: the last time I went to St. Louis was when Pope John Paul II visited there in 1999) and find aspects I’d enjoy.

WHENEVER I HEAR of high-speed rail, I think of it as a nice ideal. But not one in which our political people seem inclined to take the actions that would allow for something to happen someday.

Then again, they don’t act all that quickly on any issue. The idea of a third airport for the Chicago area has been under consideration for nearly three decades, yet we’re not any closer to seeing shovels upturning earth to allow for construction to begin.

High-speed rail is one of those things I would use if someone were to take the initiative to build it. Yet too many political people seem to think that it shouldn’t be built unless people make some sort of commitment to its use.

So in that sense, Obama’s government-speak on Thursday before leaving for a trip to Mexico City was a positive.

NOW, IT’S JUST a matter of figuring out where the federal government will start. Obama would only say that 10 corridors across the country have been identified. Who’s to say what will occur first.

It would be nice to have one of the first high-speed lines (which would require significantly upgraded railroad track from the aging track now in use) in the nation. I’m just hoping this issue is one of those where Chicago gets the benefit of being the president’s “hometown.”

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Will Barack Obama remember Chicago (and his Springfield days) when (http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/04/16/Obama-pushes-for-high-speed-rail/UPI-70531239879436/) federal transportation officials decide where to put the first high-speed rail line in this country?

So. Ill. interstate (finally) gets a name

This observation comes from someone who has driven automobiles from the Illinois/Wisconsin border to just north of that point where Illinois becomes one with Kentucky and Missouri – we in Chicago put names on our interstate highways, while the rest of the state seems content to think of their roads by numbers.

What we call the Stevenson Expressway is what the rest of Illinois prefers to think of as Interstate 55, while Interstate 90 gets called the Jane Addams Highway or the Kennedy Expressway, depending on whether one is south or north of downtown Chicago.

INTERSTATE 94 CAN be more confusing, because many Chicago residents don’t think of it as a single road. Depending on which portion of I-94 one is on, the road is the Edens expressway, the Tri-State Tollway or the Bishop Ford freeway.

The Dan Ryan Expressway is unique, since it comprises both I-94 and I-90.

Of course, one shouldn’t think of Chicago expressways in purely Democratic (or urban) terms. Former presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan are the two Republican recipients of Chicago-area expressways (Interstate 290 and Interstate 88, respectively) named in their honor.

In fact, about the only portion of an interstate highway in Illinois outside of the Chicago area that is named for a human being is that portion of Interstate 70 near East St. Louis known as the McGwire Expressway in honor of the former St. Louis Cardinals’ slugger whose “historic” home run achievement of 1998 only lasted as a record for four years.

Ken Gray, here seen in 1974 with his congressional colleague-turned-president, Gerald Ford, was from an era when representatives boasted of the large amounts of federal money they brought back to their home districts. Now, they get derided for swimming in "pork." Photograph provided by http://www.illinoisstatesociety.org/

WHICH IS WHY I think it is about time that a downstate Illinois portion of an interstate highway gets a politico’s name attached to it.

Ken Gray, the longtime member of Congress from Southern Illinois, gets the honor of being the first.

He is going to have the portion of Interstate 57 that passes through Mount Vernon (about 240 miles south of Chicago, or 150 miles east of St. Louis at the site of the 200-foot-high Christian cross that looms over the interstate) named in his honor. It is not far from his hometown of West Frankfort.

Gray gets the honor in part because he was one of the members of Congress back in 1956 when Eisenhower signed into law the measure that created the concept of interstate highways – and significantly altering the life perspective of people who grew up in towns along U.S. Route 66 (Chicago to Los Angeles) and the Lincoln Highway (New York to San Francisco, passing through Chicago Heights, Ill.).

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS’ POLITICAL observers this week were digging up the old Kenny Gray stories about how he forced Interstate 57 (Chicago to Memphis, then down to New Orleans) to cut through his home region – by threatening to withhold his needed vote for construction of the entire interstate highway system.

Now to some people, that story is everything that is wrong with government today – a political official having a snit fit until a road is built through his community at taxpayer expense. They would take offense at the notion that during 24 years in Congress, Gray was proud to say he brought back $7 billion worth of federal projects to his home district.

But do people really believe the region of Southern Illinois (the portion of the state that lies below Interstate 70) would be better off if there weren’t major highways connecting the region to Chicago, St. Louis and Memphis?

I have driven on some of those rural highways of Southern Illinois, and on a couple of occasions, I have done it in the dark. One of the most terrifying road moments I ever experienced was trying to find the town of Tamms (located 12 miles north of Illinois’ southernmost tip) and winding up in the woods on a rural road (unnamed or numbered, as far as I can tell) just north of Anna. The road that led me to that point apparently used to be fairly common in that region, until the coming of the interstates.

THERE’S ONE PART of the renaming of the interstate portion for Kenny Gray that I find ironic – that it will alter a portion of Interstate 57.

That is the one interstate of the Chicago area that does not have a name of some now-forgotten personage attached to it.

So the one road that Chicago people think of as a number is now the one road that (at least some) downstate residents will think of as a name.

I can already hear the grumbling from Southern Illinois residents whenever they hear a Chicagoan in the future talk about “I-57” – “why can’t those dummies call it the Gray Expressway the way we do,” they’ll say, similar to the way we complain about “half-wit downstaters” who insist on calling it I-55, rather than by its proper name honoring Adlai E., the second.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Here’s a breakdown on all of the interstate highways that pass through Chicago (http://www.jameson.com/chicago_freeway_names.cfm) and help the city maintain its image as the transportation crossroads of the United States.

Ken Gray’s official biography (http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=G000400) as a former member of Congress.

Long-haul truck drivers (http://www.truckingboards.com/trucking/upload/trucking-news/35118-freeway-stretch-named-after-ex-congressman.html) already are taking note of the I-57 name change.