Illinois 3 Connector Plan Gets Mixed Reception for Freight
Date Posted: December 5, 2023
Posted In: Projects,
From Transport Topics: Plans for a new highway connector from Illinois 3 in Fairmont City to Illinois 203 near World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Ill., are designed to improve traffic flow for tractor-trailers and other vehicles and help with the region’s logistics and industrial development.
But a family that owns three trucking-related companies says the Illinois Department of Transportation’s “preferred” route, which was formally unveiled last week, will have a devastating effect on their business.
The route, which consists of two adjoining roads, would require the state to use eminent domain to buy an estimated five of the family’s 18 acres in Fairmont City, Ill., where they opened a new headquarters eight months ago.
This would limit space for semi parking and prohibit construction of a railroad spur to allow train cars to pull up to the building and unload tanks of liquid commodities, according to the family, which owns and operates Newman Carriers, Archview Tank Wash and Newman Holdings.
“Our business is going to be significantly impacted by this,” said Josh Newman, vice president of Archview. “The building is less than a year old. We have over 100 employees.”
Josh’s brother, Jake Newman, predicted that the loss of land would reduce the facility’s life span from 25 to five years. He also questioned the need for the new roads based on current levels of traffic in the area.
IDOT has been talking about the Illinois 3 Connector Project for nearly 20 years. It’s part of a larger plan to eventually reroute Interstate 70 so that it splits from Interstate 55 east of the raceway and circles northwest to Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge.
The Illinois 3 connector is high on a list of 26 priority infrastructure projects for St. Louis Regional Freightway, an arm of Bi-State Development that’s coordinating a campaign to make the St. Louis region an “epicenter” of freight transportation in the Midwest.
The connector will benefit manufacturers, warehouses, railroad yards, river terminals, trucking companies and other “freight generators” in the area, according to Mary Lamie, who oversees Freightway as Bi-State’s executive vice president of multimodal enterprises.