The Illiana Tollway On October 17, reps from Metra and Pace shot their own agencies in the foot, casting the deciding yes votes in a Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Committee decision on whether to move forward with this forty-seven-mile boondoggle. The Illiana would run south of the urbanized Chicago area, serving relatively few motorists and creating only an estimated 940 jobs over the next forty years, but it would compete with transit for scarce transportation funding. However, Governor Quinn and IDOT, which controls the flow of federal dollars to these agencies, pushed hard for the tollway. Metra and Pace caved in to the pressure, which means a darker future for regional transportation.
