Toll road funding search begins
INDIANAPOLIS--The Indiana Senate Tuesday approved the search for funding for the Illinois-Indiana toll road.
If funding is found, the toll road will connect from Interstate 65 in Indiana to Interstate 55 in Illinois.
Barbara Sloan of Cambridge Systematics said that the proposed shorter route would decrease approximately 40 percent of semi-truck use from the Borman Expressway, the highest semi-truck populated expressway in the nation.
A decrease in truck use would reduce the amount of air pollution as well as traffic accidents in northwest Indiana.
Sloan said that keeping semi-trucks off local roads as much as possible would increase safety and decrease the severity of accidents.
Mike Summers, speaker for the Iron Workers Union, said that the project would create a large number of jobs.
The highway is estimated to cost $1 billion for eight lanes, or $996 million for a six lanes. Summers said that every $1 million that goes towards the highway provides work and economic benefit for 40,000 people.
Summers said that Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn is in full support of the project.
The next step in the toll-road process is to find the funding to begin construction.
