Governor should stop tollway's wasteful spending

The Illinois Tollway Authority is playing fast and loose with the most important part of the Chicago area's economy. That is our nation's freight hub as identified by CMAP the regional planning agency.

The tollway board is threatening the rail switching system which produces more than $13 billion in personal income and 200,000 jobs in our area. This is all being done to cover up a major tollway blunder of starting construction on a $3 billion Elgin-O'Hare Tollway without first owning the land necessary.

This is no way to do business and is contrary to all economic development and job creation efforts in our area. The tollway is threatening to remove 36 acres of the Canadian Pacific's rail yard for this new tollway. This could be a real job killer and jeopardize our region's role in what CMAP calls "the largest container handler in the entire Western Hemisphere."

Besides being involved in nearly 25 percent of all freight in the U.S., our rail freight switching system is a key component to Metra, the commuter rail system which moves 300,000 of us to and from work every day.

In addition, the tollway is about to waste $50 million on an environmental study scheduled for approval on the September agenda for the unnecessary $3 billion Route 53 tollway in south-central Lake County.

Gov. Rauner needs to put a halt to these bad practices right now. First, he needs to order the tollway to stop spending billions on the Elgin-O'Hare project until a route is identified that will not put hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk. Second, he needs to tell the tollway to stop the Rt. 53 project now before more millions are wasted.

It is time to stop wasteful and poorly planned spending.

Bill Morris

Grayslake