Highway Expansion

Chicago-area transportation organizations are poised to shoot themselves in the foot and harm the region by allowing the Illinois Department of Transportation Department to squander limited transportation infrastructure funds on the $2.75 billion Illiana Tollway. On Friday the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning's transportation committee voted to recommend moving forward with this wasteful, destructive project, which promises to suck jobs from Illinois and send them to Indiana. It would create only 940 new jobs over the next thirty years.

Faced with an impending budget crisis, the Texas Department of Transportation has decided not to rethink its $5.2 billion plan for a third outerbelt through undeveloped grasslands around Houston. Instead, the agency has developed a proposal to basically shift a big part of its costs to the state's major cities.

There are people like Jason Segedy in every region -- people who are trying to move the region forward on a more sustainable and competitive path. But Segedy is a little different: He actually has some power.

Looks like Connecticut still has't extricated itself from the "growth ponzi scheme" -- you know, gambling on a few road widenings while the bulk of its existing assets slide into disrepair.

Downtown freeways are unmitigated disasters for cities. They ruin the development potential of central city neighborhoods and create dead zones that divide downtown areas. That's why Milwaukee, San Francisco, New Orleans, Niagara Falls, Oklahoma City, New Haven and Syracuse have either torn them down or are seriously considering it.

Last month the Portland mega-highway bridge project known as the Columbia River Crossing died unceremoniously on the floor of the Washington statehouse. But there was some question among project opponents about whether to consider it a victory for smart transportation policy. After all, suburban Republicans opposed to the inclusion of light rail were ultimately the straw that broke the camel's back.

Just what does good state highway performance look like, according to the climate change skeptics at the Reason Foundation? This "libertarian think tank" -- funded by Exxon Mobil and the Koch Family Foundations, among others -- has a funny way of judging these things. But media outlets all over the United States are reporting its findings as if they're gospel.

They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. But the people who shape the future of greater Detroit -- despite all the urban flight, sprawl, and decline they've seen -- just can't seem to acknowledge that they have an addiction to big highway projects. On the agenda Thursday for the regional planning commission, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, are two highway expansion plans that will cost an astounding $4 billion combined.

It truly is a testament to the collective power of denial that Rust Belt city leaders still think highways are going to improve their economies. Decades of experience with sprawl and center city decline apparently haven't put an end to the notion that prosperity is just one road widening away. In Cleveland, business leaders are clamoring for a new $350 million roadway they insist will revive manufacturing in some very poor, nearly-abandoned neighborhoods. Meanwhile, a bit further east on the Lake Erie coast, there's a great example of how cities' seemingly bottomless optimism about road and highway projects can end up putting them in a very bad position.