Truck-Only Lanes on Their Way to Illinois?

By Kalyn Belsha in News on Apr 12, 2009 9:00PM

Officials from Illinois as well as Ohio, Missouri and Indiana have signed on to a development agreement that would use $5 million in federal funding to build the nation's first interstate, truck-only highway lanes along Interstate 70, the Associated Press reports.

The federal initiative, known as "Corridors of the Future," started in 2006 to provide incentives to localities that wanted to improve congestion and delivery of freight. After a year-long competition that attracted 38 applications, six interstates were chosen as "corridors" to receive funding in September 2007, the I-70 plan being one of them.

According to the most recent proposal (a whopping 162 pages) the four states plan to build four truck-only lanes, two in either direction, with medians dividing these lanes from those passenger vehicles and local delivery trucks would drive in. Conceptually, there would be an interchange at each county for trucks to switch into regular lanes and dock in a staging area.

While Illinois and the other states that authored the plan are still in the research phase (according to the initiative's website, next steps include a study to test the truck-only lane concept, a freight market analysis for the route and completion of an environmental impact study), advocates say federal backing is an important step. For their part, truck drivers are worried the states would not be able to fund the potentially multibillion-dollar project through traditional means, such as toll hikes.

The authors of the 2007 application write:

Traditionally, the delivery of transportation projects is tied to the ability to fund the improvements. With an estimated 2007 cost of $18 to 20 billion, construction using traditional funding mechanisms will take a significant commitment of available funding and require extensive reprogramming of each of the four states' existing transportation plans. Consequently, completing the I-70 TOLs project through traditional methods would take many more years.

To watch a video about what the lanes would look like and how they would work, check out the video MoDOT posted on YouTube. Skip to 4:00 for the artist's rendering of the future lanes.