A Skeptical View of the Peoria to Macomb Expressway

The “Need” – Highway proponents continually cite the need for a four-lane highway from Peoria to Quincy or for a four-lane highway from Peoria to Macomb as a necessary spur to economic development, primarily in Canton and Macomb. Apparently, no one is prepared to claim that the highway is necessary for the survival of either Quincy or Peoria, which shows good sense. Peoria is already well connected, and if it needed another four-lane highway connection, it would be towards Chicago, not Macomb. One need look no farther than Galesburg to see that four-lane connections are no economic magic bullet. Galesburg has available factory space, unemployed workers, and four-lane connections, but it is being “de-industrialized” at a rapid pace. Galesburg is instructive in another way. Driving along I-74, one actually finds very little which could be considered interstate-related economic activity. It turns out (according to a Galesburg city official) that many nation-wide chain businesses oriented towards travelers require a daily volume of twenty thousand vehicles. Galesburg’s interstate volume hovers around seventeen thousand. Not enough. Illinois 336 traffic in the Macomb vicinity, especially lodging/meal seeking traffic, wouldn’t approach that number any time in the foreseeable future. It might be possible to guess what traffic flows in the Macomb area could eventually reach by noting that, several years after its completion, Interstate 72 between Jacksonville and Quincy carries only five thousand vehicles daily – slightly more than half of I.D.O.T.’s “threshold of need” for four-lane highways. The simple truth is that there is no need.

Highway boosters are generally not very specific when they talk about “economic development,” so we must make some assumptions. Although Fulton County does have slightly higher than average unemployment for Illinois counties, the meaning of this statistic is not clear. The real question is, “How many highly employable people who are actively looking for work are unable to find work which is reasonably matched to their skills and educational levels”? Probably, the number of people who fit this description is not large. The unfortunate truth is that many unemployed persons in Fulton County were formerly employed in industries that are gone now, never to return, or have never had full-time work for an extended period because of limited education and work skills. Even if there were an influx of “new economy” jobs into Fulton County, many of the unemployed are not qualified for them, and those jobs would have to be filled by persons who do not currently live in Fulton County, or who are already employed elsewhere. Perhaps the real need in Fulton County is for a more highly educated workforce, better schools, and new highways made of fiber-optic cable, instead of concrete.

Macomb area highway boosters make essentially the same claims as those from Fulton County: “Economic development is desperately needed, and a four-lane highway is the key to bringing this about”. In this case, highway boosters are definitely crying “wolf”. A peek at state unemployment statistics shows that of the one hundred two counties in Illinois, McDonough County has the fifth lowest unemployment rate. How could this have happened without that critical four-lane highway?
So, it would seem that Fulton County’s economic problems will not be solved by a new highway, and McDonough County, by the most commonly used standard-unemployment- does not really have serious economic problems. What highway boosters in both areas have is not needs, but …

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