Big infrastructure projects are coming to Illinois. The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) revealed their six-year, $34.6 billion plan for road, bridge, transit, rail, airport and port upkeep on Friday.
The multi-year plan is backed thanks to the bipartisan Rebuild Illinois Capital Plan which came into effect in 2019.
“A little over three years ago, I signed our historic bipartisan infrastructure program into law,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said at a news conference at the IDOT building. “And since then, Rebuild Illinois has undertaken a massive transformation of our state's transportation systems.”
In the first three years alone, roughly $8.6 billion has been spent on road and bridge projects, including over $6.4 billion on the state transportation system and over $2.1 billion on local systems.
IDOT Secretary Omer Osman said he’s hopeful that the pace picks up as several large projects move beyond the initial engineering phase. “We are aggressively, aggressively pushing all these projects across the entire state,” he said.
$24.6 billion of the planned spending is accounted for in the highway portion of the multi-year plan. $13.3 billion, or 54%, is federally funded, just over $6 billion is state funding, $4.1 billion comes from bond proceeds, and $1.2 billion comes from local reimbursements.
The current fiscal year, which began July 1, is scheduled to see $3.7 billion in new construction under the road and bridge plan.
Another near-$10 billion in combined state, federal, local and private spending was laid out for transit, marine transportation, railways and airports. Of that, 59% was state spending and 31% federal.
Road projects are underway, from a $54 million interchange reconstruction, bridge replacement and repair on Interstate 80 in Will County, to $100.3 million for improvements on Interstate 24 from Metropolis to Interstate 57 in Massac, Johnson and Williamson counties.
“The renovation of nearly 4,500 miles of highway and over 400 bridges has already been completed, and virtually every Illinois resident can see and feel the results in real time,” Pritzker said.
The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) signed into law by President Joe Biden last year allowed Illinois to expand its multi-year plan by $4 billion, Osman said.
Illinois was better equipped to use the federal matching fund considering they already had an infrastructure plan in place, noted Pritzker.
“Because we passed rebuild Illinois two and a half years before the (federal law) was passed, we actually are shovel ready, we have the resources available,” Pritzker said. “There are a lot of other states that have to come up with those dollars, don't know where they're going to come from. And so we're really in a position to do much more, much more quickly.”
The Rebuild Illinois plan was the first state capital infrastructure plan in nearly a decade.
Osman, who has worked at IDOT for more than 30 years and became its director under Pritzker, said the motor fuel tax increase means infrastructure improvements can continue beyond Rebuild Illinois’ initial six-year lifespan.
“We are No. 3 in the nation when it comes to interstate land mileage, and that's a big statement to make,” he said. “Our system is complex, and we need that sustainable funding as we go down the road beyond the six years, for sure.”
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Source: IDOT
