What Studies Actually Show

As far back as 1998, experts in transportation learned there was no consequent economic benefit to building highways such as the GC. In January 1998, Wisconsin published its study of the economic impact of building new roads in/near 17 communities. It covered construction during the period 1980-1994. The principal finding: there was little adverse impact on economic activity; the study did not find any positive impact, either. In addition, the expected relief of traffic on existing roads didn’t occur, and in some cases, traffic volume actually went up! Thus, the Wisconsin experience was that outer belts failed on 2 of the 3 goals set for the GC—economic development and transportation mobility.

Even the FHWA reported that there is no cause-and-effect between highway investment and new economic activity. In a report prepared for the FWHA in December 2012, the Rand Corporation noted that vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and gross domestic product (GDP) had been strongly correlated nationally since 1936, suggesting that expanding highways (i.e., sprawl) somehow caused economic activity to increase, or vice-versa. It was that correlation which proponents pointed to as proof of causality, then, and still frequently do today. That there was ever causality could not be shown, but that didn’t matter; only the correlation mattered. However, Rand found that close correlation ended in 2003 and that the relevance was gone. Not yet gone is the perception.

The report’s objectives were to find out if the relationship was merely coincidental, whether increased economic activity caused VMT increases, or whether increased VMT caused increased economic activity. They reviewed most existing academic literature on the subject and found that no conclusion could be drawn. Only one of the studies they reviewed even suggested that increased VMT increased economic activity—but that the observed the effect was not valid over the long term! All the rest either postulated the effects were bidirectional, or that causality could not be established from the data studied. At least one study was conducted at the city level, so the size of the road project did not affect the conclusion.

That 2003 divergence, along with evidence failing to establish any causality, proves the cause-effect assumption was wrong all along; there never was a cause-effect relation between road system expansion and economic growth. Any such a claim now is simply not correct.

In 2001, the FWHA published another Rand Corporation report on four states’ economic development highway programs. Three of the states—Wisconsin, Tennessee, and Oklahoma—funded projects for new roads to support businesses that wanted to expand operations, manufacturing specifically. For each dollar of government investment, businesses spent $75 in constructing their facilities. They also created one new permanent job for each $4,000 of government investment. The tax return from those new jobs returned the governments’ investments within only a few years’ time.

The fourth state was Massachusetts. Their program, which looked a lot like one of today’s Illinois’ economic development programs, funded local modernization projects, with no specific business objective in mind. The Massachusetts program listed NO net economic benefits. Even after 10 years, no new economic development has been reported.

A Rand Corporation study in 2011 found that highway construction at regional and local levels did not generally cause economic activity to increase. Quite the contrary, they report that it “has a tendency to reallocate economic activity.” The study also notes that spending on highways has no more significant impact on economic activity than other, more broadly defined, public spending. Lastly, they conclude that of all the impacts on the economy, highway spending has the least impact on employment. In their assessment, highway spending to increase business productivity (i.e., to add access for business expansion) is 17 times more likely to benefit the community than for non-directed highway spending (that is, in the hope of stimulating increased economic activity).

In the cases that economic activity was increased, the construction was begun to support expansion of existing businesses. These are the cases wherein increased transportation mobility pays off for the community; this validated what they learned ten years earlier.

The St Louis Experience

The Rand Corporation’s finding that general investment by governments is better than directed highway investment is particularly significant for the St Louis region. In 2012, EWG, the MPO for the St Louis region, released its report on the success of government spending designed to stimulate economic growth. Most of the funding for that spending came from the issuance of bonds under the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) provisions. The MPO found that at least $5.8 Billion had been spent during the preceding 20 years, and that there had been NO DISCERNIBLE GROWTH as a result.

As no blight was ever removed, little incremental taxes were raised, so today taxpayers have to kick in to make payments on the loans that were needed to fund the infrastructure improvements. It also means that future taxpayers will have to make up the difference for decades to come.

The EWG found that retail, specifically, simply relocated from one site to another following the money, thus moving jobs and tax revenues from one community to another. The result was a zero-sum shuffling of economic activity. The dollars spent trying to stimulate growth represents almost 6% of ALL government spending during the period. In other words, each taxpayer in the St Louis region paid an extra $100/yr for 20 years and got nothing for it!

That is mirrored in the MetroEast. We saw Walmarts moving from one end of Carlyle Avenue in Belleville to another, and around the corner in Collinsville; strip malls still sit empty; KMarts move and/or close as new Targets open. This shuffle is one of the reasons taxpayers, analysts, and some elected officials have stated that the region’s communities must give up their competitive efforts to build their tax bases by stealing it from another, and instead begin to work as a region.

Although EWG, lead by the same elected officials who run the counties, sponsors regional sustainability projects, and cities actively support green programs, the efforts of the people participating seem to be for nothing. To date, cooperation has not happened; competition and TIF spending continues. Apparently, it’s too difficult for community leaders to let go of power and move forward together.

There are studies which indicate that successful results are possible. In 2010, the Economic Development Research Group (EDRG), also working for FHWA, reported its findings on more than 100 highway projects completed nationwide. Two conclusions: (1) Projects providing direct access to isolated areas did benefit those areas economically, but did not necessarily benefit nearby areas, and (2) new roads designed to improve traffic safety did not provide any supplemental economic benefit. Martin Weiss, FHWA executive, commenting on the study, observed that “improved highways, by themselves, are not a (sic) economic tool.”

The ERDC’s work was funded by a partnership among the FWHA, the Transportation Research Board, and AASHTO. It resulted in two products—tools for predicting the economic benefits of transportation projects (C11) and the set of 100 case studies made available online (C03) for planners to use. The first, the predictive tool, is the weaker of the two.

As part of the project, the ERDC routinely sends its staff to meetings and conferences to tout the two products, which it says is “at the forefront of transportation innovation.” The two tools enable politicians and planners to justify projects. All they have to do is plug in a few subjective variables to get a result.

Yet, there are limitations which the ERDC staff mentions at those meetings, but which are often purposely ignored by users. In his presentation to the 2012 Northwest Transportation Conference in Oregon, the speaker, Dr Fitzroy, showed evidence that only where local conditions were already positive—existing water, sewer, and telecom; accommodating land use policies; and most importantly, a favorable business climate—would transportation projects be economically sound. Where the needed combination of conditions did not exist, the project will fail.

In their demonstration of the C11 tools, Fitzroy and Naomi Stein cautioned the attendees at the 2014 International Transportation Economic Development Conference that “location matters.” They suggested that the broader the definition of the “benefits” and the less defined the “objectives,” the easier it is to justify the project, economically. We suggest that encourages users to be deceptive to get the desired outcome from their efforts. (We wonder if they learned that from Jonathan Gruber.)

It’s also interesting that a great deal of effort went into finding the 100 cases to include in the study. Most of the effort was reasonable, but there was a great deal of reliance upon the contractors, those who planned the project originally, and the chambers of commerce. These groups typically lack objectivity, especially when it comes to evaluating their own work, and their desire to do more work. So, it’s no surprise that 85% of the projects showed some positive economic benefit.

Even with the apparent success rate, the worst result came from the bypass category. Only 54% of bypass projects were economically successful. And we assume that those had favorable conditions ahead of time, not like the conditions that exist today in the GC corridor.

The implication of these studies for the GC is that the goal of economic development is unlikely to succeed. To meet the goal of expanding economic activity, there must first be a business to support and the project must be geared only to meeting its needs. Any additional highway investment will do nothing to stimulate the economy, and becomes “wasteful spending” rather than “investment.”

Modeling the Economic Effect

In July 2006, the FWHA engaged Boston University’s Center for Transportation Studies to develop a model for estimating job creation which results from highway construction, and, in particular, jobs in the construction industry. The report clearly cautions users of the model output to realize that the model assumes there is an infinite supply of unemployed skilled workers to put on every job. That is generally not the case, so the model output was supposed to be used judiciously.

This study pointed out that most highway construction projects merely “save” construction jobs and do little to “create” new construction jobs, because most are finite in duration. The same workers merely move from project to project. Thus, as the report states, transportation spending is not a means to create permanent new jobs—but merely one to “support” temporary ones. They also didn’t find other kinds of jobs being created.

Though Boston University and the FWHA cautioned officials on the limitations of modeling, Gov Quinn, and Gov Blagojevich before him, touted highway construction, particularly those in the Illinois Jobs Program, as means to create new jobs. In August 2014, Gov Quinn announced a new $1 billion capital spending program to fix roads/bridges after the harsh winter; the governor stated it would create 14,300 jobs. Yet, the workers filling those projects come from the existing trades, which have done little hiring of new skilled workers in the last decade. And when the roads have been fixed, the workers will be laid off; no permanent jobs will result from that spending.

Even President Obama failed to heed Boston University’s cautions, and had to admit that shovel-ready jobs were not as shovel-ready as he thought when the ARRA failed to create jobs. That should have been common sense as more skilled labor, new trucks, higher levels of oil refinement, and increased production of aggregates from quarries cannot be obtained overnight. To increase the production capacity of any industry obviously takes years.

How the Deception Worked for One Project

A local example should more clearly illustrate how officials twist and exaggerate the facts. In 2009, Holland Construction Company, Inc. engaged Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville to evaluate the economic impact of building a new “mega-retail and entertainment development” near IL-255 and I-270 near Glen Carbon. Called the University Towne Center (UTC), it would cost about $1 billion and take four years to complete. The sales pitch included claims that over 10,000 construction jobs and 1,700 permanent new jobs would be created, and that businesses would generate $1 billion in new sales annually.

On examination of the data in the actual report, it was discovered that the 10,000 construction jobs were the sum of the number of workers on the job in each of the four years. The reality was that about 2,500 construction workers would be put to work for roughly four years; they would then be laid off.

Most people believed the 1,700 workers at the entertainment and retail outlets would not be new hires, but would move from existing employment, as competing retailers lost business. Mayors around the area vigorously objected to the UTC, fearing that it would be their cities’ retailers who would lose employees and sales (and they who would lose sales tax revenue for their city). Interest in the project waned.

The UTC was touted as a boon, but it was just another effort to build something that wasn’t needed. Holland tried again near Carbondale, but they weren’t convinced, either.

Interestingly, the $1 Billion investment was to be made, not by the developer, but by the taxpayer through the use of newly created STAR bonds! Holland, employing John Costello, got political support from local elected officials who introduced state legislation to create the new bond type. But the Department of Revenue, like the cities’ mayors, anticipated losing millions of dollars each year, and the bill was defeated.

Such questionable tactics suggest to us that the GC project may be simply “desired,” not because of the benefit to the community, but to save jobs in the construction trades. That short-sighted and simplistic view ignores what many unions realize now—that maintenance work and building public transportation are much better at creating new, permanent jobs than jobs needed for system expansion. The GC project takes away from the Department’s ability to pursue those kinds of projects.

We have to ask; why won’t leaders listen to the experts? The FWHA, through numerous people and study groups, are trying to tell them what’s relevant about highway spending. But many in Congress, in the states, and in local governments do not want to hear it. That’s to the citizens’ detriment, not their benefit, unfortunately.

Over the last decade there has been a national decline in the number of miles people drive. That trend is largely mirrored in Illinois. Peaking in 2004, miles driven dropped until a small upturn in 2011 which continued in 2012 and 2013. However, Illinois’ 2013 numbers are still 3.1% below the 2004 numbers. That represents 3.3 billion fewer miles of driving in this state alone! According to the USPIRG’s August 2013 report, that drop does not seem to be related to the price of gas, nor to the 2008 economic recession, nor to unemployment. There is something more at play than those things.

The MetroEast area experienced a very similar trend, with both Madison and St Clair counties peaking in 2004, and rising over the last 3 years to a level still below 2004. Perhaps more important is where that driving is done. Over the last decade, driving in District 8 rose along local roads and interstate highways/freeways (8% and 2%, respectively), but fell dramatically along collectors and arterials (6% and 37%, respectively). That indicates more local traffic and through traffic, but less intercommunity travel. And, in turn, that implies that transportation dollars should be directed toward local roads, not arterials/collectors which are seeing less traffic, or high-speed roads which already are sufficient to handle the traffic volume.

We have already noted that an aging population drives less, and that millennials are not as eager to drive to work as to use other modes of transportation.

The April 2012 USPIRG report, Transportation and the New Generation, predicted the overall trend to continue downward. The last decade saw a 23% decline in driving in the 18-34 year old demographic, while the number of bike trips went up 24%, the number of people walking was up 16%, and the number without a driver’s license was up 24%.

We do not believe the trends will maintain those paces, but neither will they reverse for at least 3 reasons:

First, people in 18-34 year old demographic intend to live in places where they can walk, bike, or take public transportation. The implication for the state is to put more of available transportation dollars into expansion of those modes, and less into highways, where maintaining the existing system is generally sufficient.

Second, technological advancements in communications (social media and apps for public transit availability) and transportation (ride sharing programs like Lyft, and futuristic services like Zipcar) offer appealing alternatives to single passenger, and expensive, auto travel. Too, carpooling arranged through Craig’s list, and other such programs, augment the usual publicly available transportation. In EWG’s Connected 2045 Speaker Series, Steve Smith, a panelist speaking for the millennial generation, articulately spoke of these and other very creative transportation initiatives he envisions for the St Louis region. He pleaded for fewer parking garages, and more public transport options in the future.

Third, new and more rigorously enforced laws make driving unappealing to many youth. They include distracted driving laws; longer and more expensive driver’s training and tougher minimum standards; limitations on licenses (under 21, for example); and of course DUI laws.
Transportation Planning and Management

Much has been written in the last decade about the changing American landscape and how transportation planning must change to match the demographic and cultural changes which are occurring. Suggestions range from this Administration’s call for a focus on maintenance first/new construction second in President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union address, to devising multimodal approaches to transportation systems, to reemphasizing metropolitan public transit systems.

We believe one significant reason the GC project is allowed to survive is because of current transportation law. One USDOT regulation, derived from each of the recent transportation bills, covers the complex mix of programs and their Federal funding formulae. Without a major project like the GC, Illinois might well lose a portion of its funding, because it could not add even a small portion of the funds needed to build the GC into local or county road projects, which have different allocation methods. The connector, thereby, may provide the eventual opportunity to “save” a number of local construction jobs. Such a benefit provides the notional foundation required by the Federal regulatory process for major projects. Even if this circular logic is correct, we do not believe this is a sufficient reason to hold onto a project that provides no tangible benefits. Rather, we believe the funding formulae should change.

With all the new research and testimony before Congress, one might expect the Federal government to respond and change the process when funding future transportation projects. MAP-21 introduced some of the changes needed to modernize infrastructure spending, but most experts agree it doesn’t do enough to enable state and local governments to get the most from their transportation dollars. The fact that Congress merely extended MAP-21 for another 6 months, and is considering its renewal for 6 years after that illustrates the political reluctance to follow the advice and testimony of the very experts they get to testify.

Most experts agree the biggest roadblock to the needed evolution in transportation planning is the reluctance of elected officials to be progressive thinkers. Stuck in the past, too many politicians simply cannot agree to accept a new direction, content to make a few tweaks and call it a success.

Although transportation staffs should be the experts who provide advice to leaders, it appears that many are ill-equipped to alter the boss’ preconceived ideas; instead of being advisors, they end up merely figuring out how to accommodate the politicians’ parochial desires.

There seems to be little pressure from the states to modernize the process, either. In the end, progress loses to can-kicking and the states’ troubles persist.

The Experts’ Positions on Planning

Think tanks all along the political spectrum agree that old transportation solutions will not meet future transportation needs. Brookings, Heritage, and the Cato Institute all suggest very similar solutions-- deregulation and privatization (taking the politics out of the determination), and allowing states to be more flexible with their appropriations. One way or another, that idea is shared by the GAO and the Rand Corporation, as well. Their differences are generally found in the “how-to” details.

The US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) also suggested transportation planning be substantially changed. Among their recommendations is discarding the decades-old policies which poorly allocate money to transportation projects. They would make the criteria to fund a road project or to fund a public transit project equally difficult. In that way, each community can put its dollars into the projects that will reap the greatest benefit for its citizens (which also implies defining the true benefit for each project is required). Under the existing guidelines, highway money is much easier to get than public transit money.

In an article released in October 2014, the USPIRG re-emphasized the impact millennials will have on future transportation needs and exhorted planners to consider new information and to adapt to it. They specifically note that “induced demand” is a principle that works equally well for walking, biking, and public transit, so that investments in those three modes would preclude more expensive investments in roadway expansion and, yet, have the same impact.

Another USPIRG recommendation is particularly relevant to the GC project—to review “legacy projects” in light of new trends, and delay or scrap the ones that cannot be justified “on lower levels of expected traffic volume” and which do not clearly “deliver significantly greater societal benefits compared with other transportation alternatives.”

That is one of our principal objections to blindly moving the GC forward--and to this proceeding as well. The Department refuses to update the demonstrably erroneous traffic forecasts or to recognize today’s demographics. In reality, they are stuck in the past, with 1950’s concepts, no particular transportation problem to solve, and lack the leadership nerve to move on.

The USPIRG proposes efforts at both Federal and state levels. The Congress and USDOT should refocus at the strategic level, while letting the states and cities identify its tactical needs.

The liberal Brookings Institute suggests that political meddling in transportation programs has cost hundreds of billions of dollars in lost efficiencies, suboptimal investments, and over-regulation. According to Brookings, Federal resources were misdirected, leading to needless congestion, project delays, budget deficits at various government levels, and inflated construction costs. In their 2008 report, A Bridge to Somewhere, they concluded that “without a vision…the US approach to transportation has been to keep throwing money at the problem.”

If the hiring practices at the Department, and the sheer number of pork barrel projects at both the state and Federal levels have taught us anything, it’s that infrastructure construction projects are a politician’s simplest means of bringing money to his/her district; and that getting politics out of transportation planning will be difficult.


Results when Politicians Make Decisions and Don’t Ask Advice

We have seen examples of sub-optimal and politically-motivated investments in District 8. US51 was expanded to a 4-lane divided highway from I-64 to Centralia, primarily because local elected officials wanted it. They successfully got the Department to rework an earlier case study which showed US51 expansion wasn’t needed. Ironically, the state employed Context Sensitive Solutions to preparing the needed documents under the NEPA process. More troubling to us is that the study determined that by 2030, the road would still only handle 7,500 vpd south of Centralia, below the level necessitating a four-lane divided highway.

The project’s purpose and need statements essentially ignored the volume criteria, which by itself would not have justified the project, and simply replaced it with obtuse, general remarks about safety and convenience. The report also suggested that connectivity between major cities provided by I-57, less than 20 miles to the east and across a rural setting, was insufficient! Today, US51 still carries fewer than 7,000 vpd, including 500 trucks, which a 2-lane rural road could easily handle. To wit: Two-lane rural Scott-Troy Road handled 35% more volume with no congestion in 2014.

Expansion wasn’t the only questionable spending by the District. Lebanon Road in Belleville, and Troy-O’Fallon Road in Madison County have been recently repaved when neither seemed to need it. Structures were built along US50 east of Lebanon, as was previously noted, and are overgrown with decades of weeds. There are certainly many more examples.

Brookings’ Robert Puentes testified before Congress in 2013 that public-private partnerships might help solve the financial crisis in infrastructure spending. He would either make the states’ departments of transportation be responsible for advising politicians on the best use of limited dollars as part of the planning process, or let independent transportation businesses establish and prioritize statements of need.

Clifford Winston, also of Brookings, wrote a much harsher criticism of the existing politically guided process in the September 2013 issue of The Journal of Economic Literature. “If the public sector is going to maintain the status quo and not make constructive reforms, the privatization merits serious consideration,” he wrote.

What has been the government’s response to the liberals’ plea for reform? In 2014, Winston wrote that private sector technological advances, which could improve highway performance, are being quashed by the Federal bureaucracy, which ought to be touting and employing them.

The conservative Heritage Foundation is no less critical. One paper noted that only 65% of highway trust fund money goes back into infrastructure systems, while the other 35% goes to special interests and administrative costs (in FY 2013, that was about $13 Billion, including $425 million for admin costs alone!). Many of these diversions are from long-past promises that politicians cannot bring themselves to change—even though it would benefit the nation’s transportation system at large.

Heritage’s Ronald Utt believes competitive contracting, and public-private partnerships in both highway investment and operations are ways to get the most for the nation’s travelers. He favors turning back the responsibility for transportation to the states—a more drastic move than the liberal suggestions, but founded with the same conceptual basis.

Chris Edwards, of the Cato Institute, agrees with Utt, and testified before the Senate Finance Committee in May 2014. He cited the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report which advocated for “greater recourse to private sector finance” in infrastructure; that is, public-private partnerships.

In its November 2013 assessment of changing trends, the Victoria Transport Policy Institute recommended that transportation planning in the future should be “more comprehensive and multimodal, less emphasis on roadway expansion and more implementation of transportation demand management solutions.” To that end, they provide eight new paradigms for the planning process. Realizing that system expansion could not solve congestion problems, and concerned that there is considerable uncertainty in future travel demands, the Institute’s view is to increase accessibility, rather than to increase mobility.

In December 2013, the USPIRG added to the nearly universal call to renew the maintenance of the country’s roads and bridges by stating “The time has come for cities and states to shift their transportation priorities away from investments in expensive, unnecessary new highways, and toward the maintenance and repair of our existing infrastructure, and the development of new transportation choices...” In other words, USPIRG says money should be redirected from system expansion to system maintenance and public transportation. In their view, our limited resources (the Highway Trust Fund has been drawing billions from the General Fund for many years, now, and the amounts continue to grow.), will forever guarantee that some of our roads and bridges stay in poor condition.

The Rand Corporation, in a 2012 paper analyzing the question “What might we expect for the future of mobility in the United States in 2030?” reported that both straight-line trend analysis and improved travel demand models are unable to provide any meaningful predictions. These techniques are inadequate because the input data are uncertain, incomplete, and often conflicting. The authors opted to use scenario analysis for trying to answer the question.

So, too, did the metropolitan Research Center at the University of Utah when it undertook a project for the FWHA to plan Utah’s transportation patterns and alternatives for 2050.

Having come to transportation planning in the late 1990’s, even EWG has used scenario planning to illustrate transportation alternatives in the region. At the third meeting of the Connected2045 long-range transportation planning speaker series, Dr Siewert, of UMSL, presented the panelists with 4 scenarios for the region 30 years into the future. We assume the results will be wrapped into the final plan to be published in June 2015.

We do not see this kind of planning by District 8 or the Department, but think the GC might be viewed this way and presented to politicians.

Roadway Design and Architecture

It’s not just the funding approach and the top-down process that are problems needed to be reformed for future transportation planning. There’s the whole notion of what new roads, and road improvements which mitigate congestion, might look like in the future.

There are many institutions, with insightful people working on that. For example, the FWHA presents any number of articles on livable communities, transit-friendly streets, partnering between communities and transportation planners, and so on. At the same time, they advertise ways to better involve the citizens of the communities, including the idea that citizens might even generate their own plans for transportation by engaging independent professionals.

In 1998, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) hosted a conference to begin the process of modernizing highway design. The organization publishes the Green Book and Yellow Book which specify some of the design features, but it’s still up to the communities to decide what they want.

As mentioned earlier in this paper, some local communities are doing that in their comprehensive plans, but unless the way money is appropriated for transportation is changed, much of their visions will have to wait.

Transportation Planning in Illinois

The FWHA, the Illinois Department of Transportation, and its Region 5 have been understandably slow to respond to the new approaches suggested by experts, and it appears transportation planning has changed little.

While the Department seems to be moving in the direction set in SAFETEA-LU and MAP-21, there are still glaring failures to modernize, owing to the continued political nature of the Department. By naming a non-engineer to head the Department, Illinois’ leadership has signaled its adherence to old ideas, once more.

Specifically, there are still some state-level officials who believe that such construction stimulates economic activity. A quick assessment of the stated “IDOT Highway Program Planning and Development Process” confirms that continues to be a justification for highway spending. Of the only three listed objectives in Illinois’ billion-dollar 2015-2020 Highway Improvement Plan (HIP), one is to “expand the system to enhance economic development.” It seems the push is still to expand the system, first, and hope for the best.

In assessing highway “needs,” the 2015-2020 HIP asks planners to look at “preservation, increased capacity, and expansion” of the system. Two of these three seem to be redundant, and we are fearful that the Department intended it that way. That expansion is not an effective way to stimulate the economy was proved, but is still ignored today.

Despite expert advice from all sides, an acknowledgement that much spending is wasteful, and the end of spending for the Mississippi River Bridge and its approaches, more than 25% of funds in the 2015-2020 HIP for District 8 is still earmarked for system expansion--and that disregards the hundreds of millions of dollars for the expansion of high-speed rail. Most of that money is for widening US67, where traffic counts (under 10,000 vpd all along the route to Jerseyville, the most heavily traveled segments) show the existing road is still below capacity and where predictions still fail to justify the expansion; and to build a new interchange at Reider Road in St Clair County, where nothing but wetlands exist today.

So, that 25% is still too much. Consider that one-third of the remaining maintenance funds are being used to replace but 10 major bridges, there is much other repair work that cannot be done.

To illustrate the Department’s failure to actually change direction in transportation planning, we cite the expansion of IL-255 from Bethalto to Godfrey—called the Alton Bypass. At a cost of over $100 million, the limited-access 4-lane divided highway is today carrying fewer than 15,000 vpd. That volume could be accommodated with a 2-lane road, with shoulders. More traffic is still handled on the parallel Homer Adams Parkway, a 4-lane multi-access road, with about than 20,000 vpd; it could handle many more vehicles without serious congestion. The USPIRG had labeled work such as the extended IL-255 as “unnecessary boondoggle highway projects.” If there had been a serious need to bypass Alton, a network of road widening and improvement projects could have solved the problem at a much lower cost. It seems that, statewide, the Department’s approach to solving transportation problems has been akin to cracking the proverbial nut with a sledgehammer.

There are some efforts to improve transportation planning, however, which must be mentioned. The Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) approach to planning has been widely accepted by the states, and although it is supposed to govern transportation planning in Illinois, most of the effort so far has gone into merely documenting its application in the project reports. It does not seem to be used for decision-making. Rather, it appears that once a project is conceived, the requirements of CSS are built around it.

Some of the Victoria Transport Policy recommendations have seemingly been adopted by the Department in its approach to planning. One that is missing is the use of multimodal levels-of-service, wherein all modes compete against each other as solutions. That is their approach to “transportation affordability.” Today, the Illinois focus is still primarily on the costs of driving and highway congestion, while the institute’s view is to minimize total transportation costs by supporting all modes.

The Department began publishing a multimodal plan two years ago. More of a consolidation of existing plans than a new approach to transportation planning, the new plan is a start. While walkable communities have been envisioned for some time, and programs such as Complete Streets, have emerged, the Department’s financial support for them into the future is meager. A number of bike trails were funded by the Department, but the most recent plans contain little for this mode of transportation. Public transit remains a concept and entity unto itself, and because it’s poorly planned, it remains a loser, from a business standpoint. So, in spite of the existence of a multimodal plan, there is lots of room for comprehensive planning. The five Area Engineers need to have a role in that, as well, perhaps organizing and guiding the community leaders along that path.

It is correct that some communities will benefit economically from the construction of a bypass highway, but there are inevitable caveats in each case.

In September 2000, the Economic Development Research Group (EDRG) published its report on the economic impacts of bypass highways around medium sized cities. Four of the cities were larger than Belleville. Calling the bypasses “neither devastating nor the savior of the area,” the report found both benefits and adversities. Ironically, the first listed benefit was removing truck traffic from other streets and putting it onto the bypass—one of the things the GC is not intended to do.

In two of the four cities, there was major development at one or more interchanges. However, that development came at a substantial cost, according to the report. Among the adverse affects was sprawl in both residential and industrial sectors, creating painful permanent infrastructure maintenance costs. In other words, the economic activity generated by moving people and businesses to new sites was TEMPORARY, with no new permanent jobs created. Then, the short-term construction benefit was eventually offset by the added costs of maintaining the new infrastructure in perpetuity.

The authors added this significant comment “A new bypass route without supporting infrastructure [water, sewer, electric] seldom ignites a development explosion,” essentially saying that a roadway alone is not enough to stimulate economic development.

Just as in the Wisconsin experience, mentioned in the section on the economics of highway spending/investment, the EDRG found the new roads did not relieve traffic on existing streets, and in more than one case, vehicle traffic actually increased. As truckers moved onto the bypasses, more cars could use the existing roads.

Finally, the impact of the new bypasses was negative for each of the inner cities, raising the question of social justice effects—an issue dismissed in the Corridor Protection Report. The road doesn’t have to pass by a minority community for the effect there to be adverse.

In May 2006, the California Department of Transportation published its final report on the economic impacts of bypasses on small towns where the impacts would be more significant. It added several new wrinkles to the effort, however, which raise a question on the validity of the claims.

First, the study considered “community livability,” “context sensitive solutions,” and “environmental justice” in its assessment, and not economic considerations. The study concluded a net benefit in those conditions from a bypass. Measuring the benefits were necessarily subjective and non-economic; we question their inclusion in a study of the “economic effects” of bypass construction.

Secondly, California’s transportation department based its assessment of the economic situation on “theoretical research,” but failed to define exactly what that was. Not surprisingly, they concluded a net benefit, because the research basis focused on “adding capacity for accommodating…anticipated traffic volumes,” “safety considerations,” and the goal of “enhancing the ‘quality of life’ in bypassed communities” in strictly theoretical (i.e., not practical) and non-economic terms. As one example, the report claims the “perception of safety” by the public is a benefit; to CALTRANS, it didn’t seem to matter whether safety actually is improved by the bypass. As before, the economics were subjective and assumed to be correct, in theory.

In 2000, a Rogers and Marshment study on a bypass of several towns around Stonewall, Oklahoma, found virtually no economic impact. In 2001, a study in Iowa similarly found the economic effects to be neutral. Also in 2001, one objectively performed cost-benefit analysis of the future economic effects of a bypass in Lewiston, Montana, caused the project to be canceled.

FHWA found that bypasses negatively impact the city that’s bypassed. That reinforces what EWG found in the greater St Louis region. Businesses might move to the connector, but they would move from existing locations near the city center.

Even if the best case occurs, and new businesses open along the highway, those businesses represent new competition for Belleville businesses that would draw the limited customer base away from downtown. Already bypassed by IL15, I-64 and I-255, this project completes the circular means of completely avoiding Belleville.

The Wisconsin example showed little change in economic activity after building new roads in 17 communities. If we compare their result to the GC project, we find two of three goals set for the GC failed. Even after that report was released, just as in A. Einstein’s famous comment about insanity, Wisconsin continued to build bypasses. Advocates may note that the communities studied were all smaller than Belleville, so the results may be different. But we might ask how many times does one have to demonstrate a cause-effect before everyone understands the result?

So, if the connector is built, it will likely lower economic activity in Belleville; it most certainly would affect the downtown, and may well affect business activity in all the towns that it passes by. It seems clear that a new GC highway is a danger to Belleville’s existing economy—not its savior.

The effect of new bypasses on communities has been studied hundreds of times nationally with generally consistent results—some benefits but mostly adversities. Proponents, typically developers and taxpayer-paid transportation departments, focus on the benefits, even if they’re short-term, ignoring the offsetting adverse impacts. The apparent neutral effect on cities and towns bypassed means local elected officials generally do not oppose the construction. They may reap the short-tem benefit, but their successors are the ones who have to deal with the longer-term adversity.

We end the paper with some final remarks and conclusions.

The FWHA developed the guiding CSS principles following a transportation conference hosted by the state of Maryland, Thinking Beyond the Pavement, in 1998. Among the first principles is that “The project satisfies the purpose and needs as agreed to by a full range of stakeholders.” The FHWA guidelines further require that there be a consensus surrounding the “problem to be addressed” with a transportation solution.

In the following years, some of the principles were adopted and included in the Transportation Efficiency Act for the 21^st Century (TEA-21) and its successor, The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU). It has been strengthened in writings of AASHTO’s books, Executive Order 13274 on environmental stewardship, and the last transportation bill, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21^st Century (MAP-21).

Illinois passed legislation in 2003 directing the Department to adopt CSS principles in its planning and design of major projects. Sometime later, Secretary Martin reported his department’s preparatory work to Governor Blagojevich. In that report, he pointed out that citizen’s expect more than just expansion and routine maintenance of their highways, but would rank controlling sprawl and congestion, preserving landscapes and neighborhoods, and accessing bike trails, public transit, and walkways as higher priorities. We agree with his assessment. Smart growth makes sense, and communities around the country are heading in that direction.

It’s particularly important to define the stakeholders in the CSS process, because that group used to be somewhat limited. The Department lists “Residents and landowners near a project” as the very first on the list. The opinions of such people toward a road project had been dismissed because they typically are opposed to any project that would adversely impact them. Dubbed NIMBYs (for Not In My Back Yard), the tendency was to ignore their predictable comments. We find that tendency still exists and extends to any opposition.

The fact that the people who told MACTEC to look for alternative routes for the GC in 2003-2004 were considered “supporters” of the connector project underscores that mindset. Even when they said “NO,” the Department heard “YES.”

Yet, that mindset is counter to the very principle of the CSS process which requires planners to “listen carefully” to these stakeholders. Not only will they have to live with the result, they are also the very people who have to make the sacrifice when a project destroys something.

CSS and the GC

Part of the CSS process is to involve all stakeholders early in the process—before any major decisions are made—and then enable citizens to participate in the decision-making. Since the GC project predated the Department’s adoption of CSS, it evolved the old-fashioned way. The decision to proceed with the project was made essentially by two people, well before any landowners or residents got involved.

Others stakeholders include advocates, minorities, travelers, as well as business leaders, elected officials, and regulators. There is no evidence that any advocates, landowners, businessmen, travelers, minorities, or average citizens were ever involved early in the process. In fact, the Feasibility Study’s SMG included only professionals and “representatives” of the people, who, as the report states, made no actual decisions on the facility, except to proceed with St Clair County’s transportation program, as expressed in the 1991 plan. That no-decision resulted in a $500 million project.

The state’s CSS program, as written, “starts with the development of an understanding of the project’s intended purpose.” However, the SMG and the District 8 staff have chosen some rather generic purposes for the GC—connectivity, access to labor pools, no trucking, etc. In Chapters 2 and 3, we showed all of them to be largely rhetoric.

The FWHA’s requirement to build upon a consensus, and the state’s requirement to understand the intended purpose do not fit the case of the GC. The constant and widening drumbeat of opposition should signal that there is no consensus on the transportation problem facing the MetroEast, let alone on a solution.

CSS is Not Ignored—Only Patronized

Although there is a program to involve all stakeholders, the involvement is not always effective in practice. There are several ways to nullify unwanted involvement.

One is to skip over the step altogether. The Reider Road interchange project provides a stunning example of the Department abandoning CSS principles.

In 2007, Scott AFB paid the engineering firm, Gannett Fleming, to conduct a study of its roadway system, knowing that the 2005 Base Relocation and Closure Commission recommended new units at the base. Preparing to take on 600 or so more fulltime personnel, the wing commander wanted to be sure the gates and roads on base could handle the added traffic. The study concluded that they would.

In their discussion of the Wherry gate, the study authors noted, in passing, that St Clair County was talking about adding an interchange at I-64/Reider Road. That road leads from US50 in Lebanon to the base. The report stated that personnel might use the interchange, if it were built, but stated neither a need for an interchange to support on/off-base traffic flow, nor any interest in the project at all.

Despite any stated need from the base, St Clair County engaged Kaskaskia Engineering Group to prepare an Access Justification Report for the interchange, anyway. It was finished in April 2009. Citing the Scott study, the report said “The need…is based substantially on SAFB Comprehensive Transportation Study prepared in 2007…” That deception was apparently not vetted, and District 8 was induced to “fast-track” the interchange project.

Despite the BDE Manual, Chapter 25, requirement to include public comment even for non-CSS projects, no public input was taken. The FWHA staffer in Springfield was no impediment, and rubberstamped the plan, clearing the way to obtain Federal funds.

In 2013, a new study on the Wherry gate assumed the interchange would be built. Because of that, the 375 AMW commander, Col David Almand, told the local paper in Feb 2013 that the gate was a “top priority,” but said no final decision had been made.

Nonetheless, the state moved fast forward with the interchange project, we believe, not to support base personnel, but because it could eventually tie in to MidAmerica Airport. A $40 million capital project was added to the Highway Improvement Program, funded, and awarded in July 2014. The only supporting documentation we could find was that Access Justification Report, and a study which stated no particular interest in the project.

County Engineer Jim Fields told the local newspaper they were on a “tight schedule,” meaning the money from the governor’s Illinois Jobs Now! Capital program had to be spent fairly soon. Fields told the reporter that “industrial development” or other purposes were secondary to the base’s needs. Yet, the most current 2013 St Clair County Audit report belies that comment. In the Notes to the Financial Statements, Scheffel Boyle stated the interchange was “for the benefit of the [county-owned] airport…operations,” as well as for the base. Furthermore, there was already a plan to connect Reider Road to MidAmerica Airport directly.

Throughout the entire process, CSS principles were disregarded, in this case demonstrating they are little more than a paperwork nuisance for transportation planners. Can we expect an honest effort to apply them to the GC project?

Another tactic to skirt the CSS involvement requirement is to subjugate certain stakeholder concerns to those of special interests.

The USPIRG calls the Illiana Expressway a transportation “boondoggle,” to the tune of $1.3 to $2.8 Billion. With Illinois already on poor financial footing, the professional staff of the Chicago-area Metropolitan Planning Organization openly questioned the wisdom of the project and said “it exposes the State of Illinois to extensive financial risk.” They formally stated that the potential for economic development is “unsubstantiated,” that it will have “negligible effects on regional transportation performance,” that costs have been underestimated by up to 400% (Recall the Bostonian Big Dig and its overruns!); and that the economic impact may be overstated by up to 500%.

Both the mayor of Chicago and the Cook County supervisor objected to the plan, but politicians approved the plan over all those well-considered objections. Another vote in October 2014 on the GOTO2040 long-range plan moved the Illiana Expressway forward. The Associated Press reported on October 10, 2014 that both the Department and the governor took favorable positions.

That is the state of objectivity and reason in state transportation planning today.

Even in cases where the Department seems to have listened to the preponderance of stakeholders, it is not at all clear that they have done so.

Take the case of the Prairie Parkway in northern Illinois. That north-south roadway was supposed to connect I-88 in Kane County to I-80 in Grundy County, taking thousands of acres of farmland. That IL47 was less than 4 miles east of the proposed corridor did not deter the Department from proceeding with plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build a parallel highway. At least 10 community groups opposed the project and formed a coalition, called “47+,” to get the Department to improve IL47 instead of building a new highway. It wasn’t until a lawsuit was filed against the state that the USDOT released its Record of Decision to cancel the project.

Did the Department actually follow CSS principles to get to that point? Clearly not, because (1) it took a legal action to move the state and (2) there is still no comprehensive plan to improve IL47 to meet the purported needs which justified the Prairie Parkway in the first place. Rather, there are only two minor projects which address short segments of the road near/through cities. We concede that a new highway would have speeded up traffic and eased congestion, but the citizens were not convinced that was sufficient to justify the adversities, when smaller, less-invasive solutions were available..

Or the Eastern Bypass Study. That project is to complete an outer belt around Peoria. Like the GC project, the land is predominantly agricultural, with few towns near the route. The application form that citizens must fill out as prospective members of the citizen’s advisory group (CAG) states “I understand that CAG membership requires a commitment to 1) assist in determining the best possible highway corridor within which the Eastern Bypass could be built…” There is no option to offer a no-build solution to the problem. Those citizens selected to be the “impartial stakeholders” are required to not consider that option. Apparently, either the Department or other influential stakeholders have already decided that there will be a bypass.

In spite of its own rules and defying the principles of CSS, it seems the state still continues to design, approve, and proceed with highway projects the old-fashioned way! Whether the staff says it or not, they don’t want to hear or consider alternatives to the things they want to do. In all the cases we cite, the Department’s solution is the biggest possible project, spending the most money, and adversely impacting the most people.

What citizens and cities need are to fix and maintain the roads/bridges we already have, and which are often ignored because too much funding still goes to system expansion. An East St Louis businessman had to put old tires in potholes in front of his shop last spring because that city doesn’t get enough transportation money to repair his street; Old Troy Road rides like a washboard while Lebanon Road gets needlessly resurfaced; the Mississippi River Bridge gets built only to have congestion remain on the Poplar Street Bridge because the exit onto I-44 wasn’t a priority.

The sad state of road/bridge maintenance was thrust into the national spotlight, again on November 23, 2014, when Steve Kroft, of 60 Minutes, reported on the state of repair in our roads and bridges. While vast sums are siphoned for system expansion, the $1 billion needed to fix a single railroad choke point, the $7 billion needed to make I-95 in Philadelphia safe, and the $50,000 to fix one road in East St Louis cannot be found. How sad?

Why do these things happen? Because entities at the top of the funding food chain take so much there is little left for those at the bottom; because too many funds are allocated to system expansion; because Congress cannot pass reasonable changes to funding formulae, or give up their parochial pork; because we lack enlightened leadership even at the local level.

State and local transportation officials are not innocent victims in this circumstance. They have a long history of abuse. We have mentioned the wasteful spending to build structures along US50 in St Clair County that stand in fields and grow weeds; to expand US51 to a 4-lane divided highway which still carries the same traffic volume that it did when it was 2 lanes; the $100 million investment to build IL-255 in Madison County when a smaller series of projects could have handled the traffic; and the hundreds of millions more to expand US67.

We believe there is no better time to redirect funds to the real “needs” of the citizens and to reallocate funds statewide to work that has a “purpose.”

Members of the steering committee met early on with local elected officials (Mr Tom Holbrook and Mr John Barecevik) and continued to meet with as many as would give us an opportunity (Mr Jay Hoffmann on March 17, 2008, Mr Mark Kern on February 9, 2009, Mr Steve Reeb on March 19, 2009, among them). Hosts included both opponents and proponents of the project.

Mr John Baricevik, then county board chairman, who was central to the initiation of the project in 1998, hosted us, but as the GC’s strongest proponent, was indifferent to our comments and untouched by our arguments. Not only did he dismiss our objections, he simply leaned back in his chair and said, in effect, that it would happen because he wanted it. Not a single Democrat on the board challenged that position and a resolution was recorded supporting the project; it remains in place today.

Mr Tom Holbrook, then a local state representative, was similarly undeterred in his support of the project.

We met with Mr Glenn Hubbard and separately with Mr Reeb, two members of the St Clair County Board in 2009. Both listened to our arguments, but had already concluded that the project was a mistake. Each encouraged us to continue working on plans to end it.

We met with O’Fallon mayor Gary Graham in June 2009. He seemed to support our effort at first. However, he knew the county supported the connector and said he needed the city to take advantage of it, were it ever built, so it was included in the city comprehensive plan as a separate topic.

We met with Mr John West, of O’Fallon and also a member the county board, in 2010, to discuss the O’Fallon bike program and our contribution of 50 bicycles to support a city initiative; he indicated support for our effort to end the project.

Illinois Sen Kyle McCarter, a business owner from O’Fallon, agreed to attend one our steering committee meetings and stated that he opposed the project. After being elected to the state Senate, he worked with Sen Lautenberg to revive and pass an amendment to the Corridor Protection Statute which requires a 10-year review by the Department of all protected corridors.

Jerry Blair, a participant in the Feasibility study effort, and currently Director of Transportation Planning for EWG, also attended a steering committee meeting about 2004-2005. He listened to our comments closely.

On March 5, 2013, we met with Ellen Krohne, Executive Director of the Leadership Council of Southwestern Illinois. One of that organization’s efforts is to help expand distribution and warehousing operations in the region. She mentioned the American Bottoms as one of the areas where development is preferred, but did not talk about southeast Belleville, where the GC would be built.

In addition, various steering committee members had informal conversations with Congressman John Shimkus in 2005, Congressman Jerry Costello in 2007, and Congressman Enyart’s Chief of Staff in 2014. Our efforts to meet with other elected officials, as well as some of the study group members, have yet to be successful.

Department of Transportation

Citizens for Smart Growth: Stop158 has maintained continued contact with the Department at several levels over the last 11 years.

They began soon after the first hearing. We were hosted by MACTEC to discuss our objections to the corridor protection study, and subsequently met with members of District 8. While our concerns were heard, they have been generally ignored. Appendix C of the study report contains a general description of the first meetings.

Since then, the Department has been very willing to host us, and has been gracious and candid in all those meetings. We had the opportunity to present our case to the last three Secretaries of Transportation—Sec Sees on September 24, 2008; Sec Hannig on October 13, 2009; and Sec Schneider on July 12, 2012. In addition, we have had regular meetings with the District 8 Engineer (Ms. Mary Lamie on three occasions, Mr Omer Osman on one occasion, and Mr Jeff Kiern on two occasions). Though each of the nine meetings with transportation officials was cordial, none produced any review or change in the GC project’s status.

Indeed, Sec Sees wrote us that the project remained “viable.” In 2014, Secretary Schneider opted not to address our requests to judge corridor protection on the GC project’s “purpose and need,” instead of its “feasibility and viability.” We offered that would conform to recent guidance from FWHA. She also decided against assigning a Department-level hearing officer. She ignored both requests and replied simply by pointing out (erroneously we might add) that 3,014 citizens attended prior public hearings on the corridor.

During our October 2010 meeting with Ms Lamie, we were invited to send our specific concerns in writing for evaluation. Optimistic we would generate some review process, we replied on Dec 10, 2010. The District Engineer’s response was that our comments were too vast for evaluation and comment, and would be more properly answered by a full Phase I study, the kind that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) required.

We met the current Area 5 Engineer, Mr Keirn, in earlier meetings with Ms. Lamie and Mr Osman, and had cooperative dealings with him over the years. Our first meeting with him as Acting Area 5 Engineer was April 20,2013; it was cordial, but a bit shorter than the meetings with his predecessors. It was also apparent to us that we were not as welcomed. He stated that there was a lot of work for him and his staff, and that he’d be able to do more of it were it not for meetings such as the one he had with us. Our sense was that he was more focused on short-term achievements and construction than on long-term transportation planning.

The meeting on June 19, 2014 was little different. We expected to discuss our suggestions for the upcoming hearing, but Mr Keirn again stated that he devotes no resources to the GC project except the ones needed to meet with our group. He also made it pretty clear that no matter the outcome of the 10-year review, nothing regarding the connector would change in the foreseeable future.