Op-Ed: New Illinois Highway Program Helps Make Connections

SPRINGFIELD -- For more than 200 years, Illinois’ strength is rooted in making connections.

With its major metropolitan area of Chicago and its surrounding suburbs right in the middle of the Heartland, the Prairie State helps millions every day make the connections that matter. Our economy thrives from our intricate network of rail, roads, airways and ports that connect the coasts and all points in between. With every vehicle traveling that network around the clock, millions of families have better lives and support each other everywhere they go.

Over time, Illinois policymakers lost focus on the importance of ensuring those connectors that make up our transportation infrastructure could hold up under the strain. Pavement broke and crumbled. Road surfaces wore thin. Bridges became less safe. Barges struggled to travel our rivers. Busses broke down. Without help, we faced a real crisis.

In 2019, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and state legislators stepped up and approved Rebuild Illinois, a long-term funding capital program to answer the call. This year, Illinois is setting new records for investing in our connecting infrastructure and our future is bright.

The Transportation for Illinois Coalition is an umbrella organization of business, labor, transit agencies and transportation advocates who know how important investing in our connection strength is to our state’s and its people’s success. We formed nearly 25 years ago to build support for the investments we are seeing now – investments in our economy and our future success.

In July, our team joined the Illinois Department of Transportation to release a new Multi-Year Program for the next six years of planned spending on infrastructure improvements and expansions. The results are record-setting and worth celebrating:

• Illinois’ largest-ever Multi-Year Program, with annual spending of about $4.6 billion for highways and bridges
• More than $27 billion in improvements for highways and bridges, addressing more than 3,000 miles of roadway and nearly 10 million miles of bridges
• More than $9 Billion for transit agencies
• 94 percent of state interstate road pavement and 96 percent of state interstate bridges will be considered in acceptable condition when these improvements are completed

IDOT has created a comprehensive set of maps and explaining documents to support the program here: https://idot.illinois.gov/.

Making these connections is about much more than filling cracks and shoring up concrete and asphalt. It’s about helping people build their connections.

These improvements will reduce the costs and time delays to ship goods and services. They will reduce the time you sit in traffic or ride on busses and trains to get to work or to your family event, and the costs you face to fix your vehicle from a run-in with busted pavement.

They will draw young engineers back to Illinois, who had no choice but to leave a few years ago when there were no projects to work on here. They will support many dedicated union workers and their families, including minorities who will have opportunities that simply didn’t exist until now. They will support small and large contracting businesses, who hire local workers and spend their money locally to boost fellow businesses in our communities.

As you see the orange cones and flags pop up more frequently on our roadways across Illinois this year beyond, we hope you will see them as a sign of progress. Thank you to Gov. Pritzker and legislators for helping strengthen the support system that will ensure we can all connect more safely and with more certainty, today and for many years to come.

Kevin Burke

Kevin Burke III, PE is the Executive Vice President of the Illinois Asphalt Pavement Association and a TFIC Co-Chair.

Springfield, Illinois

Pat Hosty

Pat Hosty is the Executive Director of the Chicago Area Laborers-Employers and Education Trust and a TFIC Co-Chair.

Chicago and the surrounding suburbs