U.S 67 in Illinois Upgrades

[I-39]

Couple things about U.S 67 in Illinois, since the IDOT website has removed most of the information regarding the project 

1. Does anyone have links to maps of the Macomb eastern bypass and Jerseyville (and Delhi) bypass?

2. What exactly are they going to do between White Hall and Roodhouse? Will they build the road on a new alignment between the two cities since they are fairly close to one another

3. Are they bypassing Beardstown or utilizing the existing route?

[Alex]

3. Are they bypassing Beardstown or utilizing the existing route?

New alignment to the west of Beardstown and then joining the existing right of way across the Illinois River. Some renderings are still posted online at http://www.us67illinoisriverbridge.com/Gallery2.aspx

[Revive 755]

2. What exactly are they going to do between White Hall and Roodhouse? Will they build the road on a new alignment between the two cities since they are fairly close to one another

I believe this was to be a combined bypass on the east side of both towns.

[3467]

http://www.idot.illinois.gov/projects/us-67-corridor  You can find links to the EIS here

http://www.peoriatomacomb.com/  You can see the rough route of the Macomb Bypass here

The current end south of Jacksonville is where the White Hall -Roodhouse bypass will begin
The Delhi bypass will be just west of the existing route and is funded ...well if it passes the govs new road review. The rest only has more engineering and land acquisition despite the poor condition of the Beardstown Bridge

[Revive 755]

http://www.idot.illinois.gov/projects/us-67-corridor  You can find links to the EIS here

I'm only getting the cover of the FEIS.  Seems IDOT didn't put up the full document.

[3467]

You have to click on the table of contents on the left and it works . I have the EIS for Jacksonville Alton and the EIS for the Alton bypass which was 1986 before we had the world wide web . I don't think the other one was ever digitized either. . The Macomb bypass was once up . Bother are at WIU I don't know if they can be checked out but you could email the Library and ask they be digitized and put online

[3467]

http://www.wiu.edu/libraries/digitization/

Found a link If a bunch of us email this one or ask a librarian and say that we want the EISs online we may get it . When I was there I found several EISs 67 Macomb By pass Il 336 to Quincy . I don't think IDOT will get around to the old ones

[edwaleni]

Progress on U.S. 67 sputters due to lack of funds

http://www.sj-r.com/news/20160826/progress-on-us-67-sputters-due-to-lack-of-funds

JACKSONVILLE -- The good news is, approximately half of the total mileage of U.S. 67 from the Quad Cities to Alton has been improved, much of it to four lanes. The bad news is, don't expect much new work to happen in the near future.

"I didn't come here to say we are spending money or it's just around the corner,"  Rich Brauer, assistant secretary with the Illinois Department of Transportation, told a meeting of the Corridor 67 group on Friday in Jacksonville. "We don't really have the budget that we need right now to take care of our infrastructure."

In the past, Brauer said, IDOT was able to use 73 percent of its budget for maintenance, 19 percent for congestion and the rest for new projects. Right now, the agency must use 93 percent of its budget for maintenance, he said, meaning a smaller slice of the pie for what are termed "expansion"  projects, or those that upgrade existing roads like U.S. 67.

"If you're in southern Illinois, you want Route 50. All of the legislators around Springfield want six lanes around that city, and so on,"  Brauer said. "There are 20 expansion-type projects like Route 67 in downstate Illinois right now, with the cost totaling $10 billion, so there is a lot of competition for the dollars."

Brauer said in order for projects like the Route 67 improvement to keep moving forward, a sustainable funding source is needed, not the system that Illinois has previously relied upon of passing a capital construction bill on an irregular basis. He mentioned that the motor fuel tax also does not bring in as much revenue as it used to.

"We want to look for more sustainable project funding," Brauer said. "It's very expensive when you bond projects over the long term."

Roger Driskell, director of IDOT's Office of Planning and Programming, told the Corridor 67 group that improvements to 123 of the corridor's 228 miles have been completed since construction began in 1990 at a cost of $1 billion. Another $2 billion is required to complete the rest of the highway work, he said.

According to the IDOT presentation at Friday's meeting, additional U.S. 67 improvements that are planned and await a funding source include 28 miles from the Greene-Scott County line to Jerseyville, the Jerseyville Bypass, and adding the southbound lanes to the Macomb Bypass. The northbound lanes around Macomb are under construction.

"It seems like there is always a piece being built of Route 67 and we have engineering going on almost continually,"  Driskell said. "A lot of the U.S. 67 work over the years was funded by federal earmarks. Those who say they don't like earmarks have probably never gotten one. But now, there are no more earmarks."

The federal funding that does come to Illinois for transportation projects is split 80 to 20 percent, with Illinois paying the entire project cost and the federal government reimbursing the state for 80 percent of it, Driskell said. He added that IDOT's multi-year plan for transportation construction projects is currently funded at $2 billion per year, the same level as 16 years ago. "We should be spending at least $3 billion per year," he said.

Corridor 67 chairman John Power admitted that "we got a thorough report, but it wasn't very encouraging. Until the federal and state governments can get their act together, we're looking at 20 more years and $2 billion before this thing is done."

Power said Corridor 67 members will continue to press state and federal officials to complete the highway improvements because "that's how we got over a hundred miles' worth of a 200-mile-plus project done, and over a billion dollars spent on that project to date. If we have to go at it for another 20 years, we will carry that forward."

U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, echoed the group's desire regarding U.S. 67.

"I'm not going to be satisfied until the project is complete,"  Davis said. "That's the problem that we have in this country, major infrastructure has been ignored for so long that projects that could have and should have been completed years ago are still on the books. Many of the projects like the Beardstown bridge must compete against long-term projects because of obvious maintenance concerns."

"The federal government finally, for the first time in 10 years, has passed a long-term highway bill that allows IDOT to have a stable source of funding for five years to work with on major projects like Route 67,"  Davis said, referring to the recently passed federal transportation bill.

State Sen. Sam McCann, R-Plainview, who like Davis has a large portion of U.S. 67 in his district, agreed with many in attendance at Friday's meeting that "west-central Illinois has a lot to offer, but our full potential cannot be realized until Corridor 67's improvements are fully funded and built."

"I really appreciate the approach that IDOT is taking to find sustainable funding rather than piecemeal from capital project to capital project,"  said state Rep. Jil Tracy, R-Quincy. "In the end, that will be a much better revenue goal that we need for our infrastructure projects like Route 67."

IDOT District 6 cuts a swath through central Illinois from east to west and includes Quincy, Jacksonville, Springfield, Decatur, Charleston, Effingham and Paris.

Of the 66 miles of U.S. 67 in District 6, 28 miles have been improved, according to IDOT District 6 engineer Jeff South. Work in the district that awaits additional funding includes the Rushville Bypass and the estimated $200 million it will cost to replace the bridge over the Illinois River at Beardstown. The 80-year-old bridge has been repaired recently and is safe for traffic but still needs more repair work, South said.

[johndoe780]

And hopefully when you have the infrastructure gas tax lockbox passed in November, you'll have the secretary of IDOT quit whining for more funding.

[The Ghostbuster]

Is there enough traffic on US 67 to warrant 4-lanes statewide?

[edwaleni]

Is there enough traffic on US 67 to warrant 4-lanes statewide?

All by itself, no.

There has been a long term battle between Illinois and Missouri and Iowa over the "Twin Cities-St Louis" corridor. Since the 1970's the political delegations and their respective DOT's have been wrangling to get more funding to support the corridor in their states. 

For years Wisconsin kept blocking it thinking it should go through them, but that has finally died down. When Iowa finished extending US218 to St Francisville, the pressure to get funding escalated.  Missouri finished US 61 south from the Iowa state line to Hannibal.  They are currently planning the US24 bypass of Hannibal because US61 becomes an urban/traffic light fixture on McMaster Ave.  But they finished the rest of US61 all the way to Wentzville where I-70 and I-64 meet.  But US61 is not built to interstate standards across the entire stretch.

Here comes Illinois. 

Slowly they have been pushing US67 north from Alton (where it connects to I-255) with the idea it would be built to interstate standards. Connect with the CKC-110 at Macomb which would then provide a 4 lane ride to Galesburg and I-74. Truckers could then take I-74 to either the Quad Cities, or over to I-380 in Iowa to make the trip north to the Twin Cities via I-35.

So the last piece for Illinois is US67 from Godfrey to Beardstown to Macomb.  Beardstown will be the bottleneck for years until they can build a suitable bypass over the Illinois River. the new US67 would connect to the CKC on the north side of Macomb and form the eastern bypass.

There already are a lot of truckers who use the I-380/I-74 route to the I-155 "Peoria Cutoff" to reach St Louis to avoid US61 in Missouri. Some use US61 South to Quincy then cross over at I-72 to avoid the rolling hills and grades of eastern Missouri.

Now this is where the question, "is their enough traffic to warrant a US67 upgrade?"

If you look at the volume of St Louis bound truckers who spread out over 3 or 4 different routes, the answer would be yes if you were to provide them with 1 preferred, more direct route.  That is what Illinois wants US67 to become.

Is there a future signage change as part of this?  If IDOT can maintain its vision of building to interstate standards all the way, instead of bastardization like what the CKC became, it could get an I number sometime in the future. But it may be 30-50 years at current funding levels before than happens.

[Revive 755]

^ Except, IIRC, US 67 in Illinois will only be built as a freeway for some of the bypasses.  The all freeway option was ruled out early in the EIS.

[edwaleni]

^ Except, IIRC, US 67 in Illinois will only be built as a freeway for some of the bypasses.  The all freeway option was ruled out early in the EIS.

If that is the case, then US67 will function identically as the CKC.

Limited access for bypasses and major route arterials, but maintain farm implement and local access in between.