Posted on 01/16/2018 4:02:45 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
A Lake County environmental group on Thursday sued the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority to stop it from spending any more money to study an extension of Route 53.
The lawsuit, filed in Lake County Circuit Court in Waukegan by Livable Lake County and six area homeowners, alleges the Tollway failed to abide by state law in pursuing the controversial project. Specifically, the lawsuit claims that the Tollway violated the Illinois Toll Highway Act by failing to get proper authorization for the corridor from the Illinois legislature and not holding required public hearings.
Anthony Vega, a representative for Livable Lake County, called the Route 53 extension a “highway boondoggle.”
“They’re just spending money to widen highways that are destructive to the environment,” said Vega, who said the suit was filed Thursday afternoon. “This is a pattern of wasteful spending. Building roads won’t solve congestion — if anything, it will just worsen it.”
The Tollway last spring approved spending $25 million for an environmental impact study on the controversial project, which has been discussed since the 1960s. The proposal would stretch Route 53 from suburban Arlington Heights in Cook County to Grayslake in Lake County, and also widen Illinois Route 120, creating a new, T-shaped, 25-mile toll road.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Story should have read, “Homeowners don’t want the project in their backyard, so they teamed up with an environmental group to front the cost to fight the project.” If I had to guess.
I don’t know where Illinois is going to get money for anything like that. However, anyone who has gone from I-90 to CDW’s Corporate Headquarters in Buffalo Grove knows that road would benefit from expansion.
They want to make it another toll road to squeeze.
I remember back when I was in high school, a resident supposedly in the pathway of the extension asked one of the local TV stations whether there was really going to be an extension because they didn't know whether to sell their house or not. (Don't know who they thought was going to buy a house in the path of an extension, LOL.) The station did a story on it and their conclusion was, yes, the extension was going to go through.
Here we go again, 45 years later.
Not sure why Freepers care. But this road is needed. There is an amazing traffic jam every day that goes into Chicago and around Ohare. Much of that traffic could go around if there was a short extentention from 94 to 53 north of the city. There are huge Uline and Amazon facilities just north of the Wisconsin borader and many of the trucks do not really want to go to Chicago or Ohare. This would allow all that traffic to skirt the traffic of the city which is stop, stop, and go during rush hour, 4 lanes wide in each direction.
I understand that the people in the area may be upset. But their homes were farms a few years ago. We had a fight then when their homes were built. Did they think their homes were the last things being built there? In reality many of these home will become more valuable once the traffic issue goes away. But some will get an interstate in their back yard. And I can understand that that may be sub-optimal for them.
53 used to be a good way to get from Carol Stream to Bolingbrook.
I lived in unincorporated Mundelein, about five miles from the proposed highway. I don’t like the latest proposal because it would be a toll road where the highest speed limit would be 45 miles per hour. If someone pays a toll, he or she should be able to drive at least 55 m.p.h.
Uh huh. Liberals always come up with these stupid, seemingly clever on the surface formulations as to why something they don't want done can't or shouldn't be done, like "We can't drill our way out of this", etc. I'm sure you can quote a few of your own.
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