EOW was originally to connect . Then an EIS suggested 20 remain an arterial ...then CMAP revived the idea to 20.
Now it's the ramps to county Farm. These are all NHS routes so they could all be interstates. It would be interesting to know the full story
LOL....Full story on US20? How far back would you like to go?
It's been a full on drama since the Tri-State was built in the 50's.
Then the Eisenhower Extension (I-90 at the time) relocated it. A lot of beef from residents due to traffic that got pushed into IL-64 North Avenue in Elmhurst.
But the problem just came back because IDOT never finished FAP43 and left it hanging at Army Trail Road, people exited at US-20 and it kicked the bucket down a few years and Lake Street is a problem again.
While a US-20 Expressway had been on the books for sometime, the traffic using Lake/Army Trail/North Ave going east were cars headed to O'Hare, or trucks coming in and out of Zenith, Jewel and some other industrial at the time.
A couple of things happened, land was getting scarce as IDOT didn't have a lot of dough after 1975. There was a political movement to relocate O'Hare traffic to a western access and Chicago balked at any access outside I-190.
IDOT did acquire vacant land west of now I-290 and around Thorndale when a new development (Hamilton Lakes) was being built out with the idea that it would either be a freeway or a transit corridor. US-20 was supposed to extend here (someday)
Small trivia, Hamilton Lakes Tower was originally planned to be 75-80 stories high and was going to be the 2nd tallest building west of Chicago, but they couldn't get a permit from the FAA to have a building so tall so close to O'Hare. WBBM-AM and WGN-AM also filed against it and Hamilton Lakes offered a new transmission tower to them in return. The building was truncated to its current 20 story height.
After that it became all political again as Chicago blatantly refused to allow anything to access O'Hare from the west. When Republican's got control of the Illinois Legislature, they funded IDOT to complete the EOH from I-290 to Lake Street in Hanover Park and to complete the land acquisition to IL-59.
In fact the original EOH had a wide center median to allow the future use of transit, if/when they could. The Republican's in DuPage County were furious that Chicago refused to play ball to help alleviate a regional transportation issue.
After that, there were quite a few private entities that wanted to build a transit service into O'Hare from the west and take it down the EOH. DuPage County was most interested in funding it publicly and several county board members got in trouble for a Disney junket to look at their monorail, (right).
Cook County interfered perfectly when a political contingent in Schaumburg demanded any airport service connect with Woodfield Mall, and then flirted with the CTA coming out that far. (it only got to OHare fortunately).
With a political stalemate, the EOH sat in its pre-tollway form for a few years until this time things changed. During this political stalemate, the EOH/US-20 never moved any further. Some widening and left turn lanes and incremental improvements, but no freeway past Hanover Park.
With politics now starving IDOT budgets, the US-20 Freeway planning had a few more public hearings in the early 1990's and it was shelved. (but IDOT never gave up the land or its intent)
Chicago was losing air traffic and the configuration of the airport was inefficient and they needed several new E-W runways to fix it.
When they came to DuPage County leadership they said "western access please" Chicago threatened to file suit. But it was the City of Bensenville to the rescue and filed a massive lawsuit. Chicago saw years and years of delays and called uncle.
The political compromise was to use ISTHA, now free to refinance bonds at will, (due to a previous law change for I-355 that didn't exist at the last go around) and having a joint political control in Springfield, to "bottle up" the airport, build western access, give them their runway extensions and compensate the City of Bensenville for the hassle.
IDOT used to be really good at planning and building freeways speculatively using solid regional business data.
But when they ran out of money and were starved, everything became reactionary and they had to let the demand get "pent up" so that public hearings would be more favorable.
FAP43 was a prime example where people were so fed up, they gladly let it be built. So it will be for the future of US-20 and the EOH. People between Elgin and Hanover park will finally get so fed up and it will get the momentum to get it finished.
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Topic: Elgin-O'Hare Tollway (Read 184846 times)