Route 53: All show, no go
In case you missed the news flash, Lake County leaders have proclaimed that "The Time Is Now" to bring not only Route 53, but also Route 120 into the modern transportation world.
Note to readers: No, you did not fall into a wormhole and emerge in November 1994.
It is indeed November 2009, and earlier this week, the movers and shakers in our county government sent a letter to Pat Quinn -- who, as of Friday anyway, is still the coincidental governor of Illinois.
"My appeal to you now is to help us with advancing these much-needed state highway improvements by bringing focus and leadership to the effort," wrote members of the Lake County Transportation Alliance, who should have been warned ahead of time that most of Quinn's focus right now is on the television work of Dan Hynes.
But the letter pressed on: "With President Barack Obama in the White House, former Congressman Ray LaHood as our Secretary of Transportation, and Sen. Dick Durbin all in national leadership positions, there has never been a better time to get support for these transportation improvements, and the time to act is now."
In other words, Lake County sees a perfect storm on the transportation-funding horizon. The good kind of perfect storm, not the one that killed George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Chicago's own John C. Reilly in that movie.
Lake County has even gone to the trouble of printing up smart-looking, seven-page brochures touting the Route 53/Route 120 projects, under the aforementioned headline of "The Time Is Now." Those with long memories will recall that this was one of the many official slogans of the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980, so maybe Lake County is hoping for results similar to those that crushed Carter-Mondale.
For the record, you can put me down as in favor of the Route 53 extension and the Route 120 bypass. And this endorsement comes from someone who not only once lived in peace within 100 yards of the existing Route 53 in Cook County, but also from someone who currently lives within spitting distance of the would-be bypass.
But I have a problem with this campaign, and it's not just that they're using slogans from the days of Cyrus Vance. It's also that I learned long ago not to get my hopes up about Lake County road improvements because they happen only in small pieces, not big chunks.
On paper, Illinois might have a lot of juice in Washington right now, but I remember another time when the players were lined up for Route 53 -- specifically, the early- to mid-1990s, when Springfield seemed to be warming to the task:
"You want to see the real clout, look at the Illinois House roll call from July 1, 1993, when a fateful joint resolution gave life to the Route 53 tollway," I wrote, foolishly of course, in June 1995. "Among the 'yeas' are names like Daniels (as in Lee, as in the current Mr. Speaker) and Churchill (as in Bob, as in Most Powerful Republican in Lake County) and even the former Mr. Speaker (as in Mike Madigan, until recently the Most Powerful Man in the State).
Some 15 years later, Daniels and Churchill have moved on to other things, Madigan is again Mr. Speaker, and Route 53 is still all show and no go. Place your bets now on if this will still be the case when the Obamas and LaHoods and Durbins are collecting their lucrative government pensions.
