ULLIN, Ill. -- A proposed, east-west highway through Southern Illinois could offer a road to prosperity, backers of the I-66 project said at a meeting Monday night.
About 60 people, most of them from Southern Illinois, attended the meeting at Shawnee Community College.
Those at the meeting voted 57-1 to form a task force to push for a feasibility study for an interstate-type road across the region as part of a coast-to-coast highway.
Another meeting will be held in mid-July to elect officers for the task force.
"So, it is off and running," said Walt Wildman, executive director of I-66 Project Inc., headquartered in Cape Girardeau.
Wildman said an Illinois study could cost $250,000 to $300,000 and take a couple years to complete.
Wildman has been lobbying for the highway project for a decade. The project has yet to get to the construction stage.
Wildman said the project has had congressional support. A 1994 national study found that the eastern half of the coast-to-coast from Virginia to Missouri would be the most feasible part of the route, he said.
In this region, the state of Kentucky has done a feasibility study for the I-66 project and Missouri is doing a study.
But the Illinois Department of Transportation hasn't embraced the idea.
Karl Bartelsmeyer, district engineer for IDOT in Carbondale, attended Monday night's meeting. Bartelsmeyer said the state doesn't have the money to do a feasibility study for the I-66 project.
He said the department is spending 98 percent of its budget maintaining existing roads. That leaves little money for new construction, he said.
"We are currently very short of funds," said Bartelsmeyer.
He also said the proposed highway route raises environmental concerns. The route would run through the Shawnee National Forest and various natural areas.
But David Cheek, a trustee with the village of Ullin, suggested a highway could be built through the region.
Cheek outlined a 54-mile route that would run from Metropolis to Cape Girardeau. It would include 10 miles of existing interstate roadways -- six on Interstate 24 and four on Interstate 57.
It would include a seven-mile stretch across the Shawnee National Forest, south of McClure. But Cheek said that section of the forest is less valuable from an environmental viewpoint than many other areas of the forest.
Asked about the possibility of a toll road, Bartelsmeyer suggested the traffic through Southern Illinois probably wouldn't be sufficient to pay off construction bonds.
He said his department once looked at the possibility of constructing a toll road from Carbondale to St. Louis but concluded there wasn't enough traffic to pay for it.
Bartelsmeyer said a new highway isn't a guarantee of economic development.
But Mike Vessell, a labor economist with the Illinois Department of Employment Security, said the highway project has enormous potential for economic development.
Lee Crisp of the Pepsi bottling company in Marion, Ill., favors the highway project. "This would bring jobs to the area," he said.
J.L. Stewart owns a motel and restaurant in Metropolis.
He said the region needs I-66. He said an east-west interstate-type highway would pay economic dividends, including the opening of new restaurants and motels.
"I'm not trying to line my own pocket," he said. "I think it would be just great for the area."
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