For the record, the Town of Chesterton is officially in favor of the Illiana
Expressway, a proposed 47-mile toll road which would link I-65 near Lowell
with I-55 south of Chicago.
On Dec. 12, the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission voted
76-20, in a weighted vote based on a community’s population, to endorse the
Illiana Expressway by adding it to the 2040 Comprehensive Regional Plan and
to the FY 2014-17 TIP.
Chesterton’s representative on NIRPC, Town Council Member Jim Ton, R-1st,
voted in favor of the resolution.
At the Town Council’s meeting Monday night, Ton provided his colleagues with
a summary of the Dec. 12 meeting, at which Robert Alderman, director of the
LaPorte District of the Indiana Department of Transportation, said that the
Illiana Expressway would reduce congestion on I-94, improve air quality in
the region, provide for economic development of the region, and create jobs
in construction and related vocations.
The Illiana Expressway was widely opposed in some quarters, in particular by
folks who live along the proposed route.