As New Lenox I-80 project nears the end, GOP continues infrastructure opposition
As a major highway project in New Lenox nears completion, politicians who oppose rebuilding roads and bridges continue to confound people who support infrastructure spending.
New lanes opened last week on Interstate 80 at Route 30 in New Lenox as a contractor nears completion of a three-year, $47 million project to rebuild the interchange, widen the interstate and replace bridges.
“The interchange is an advance project leading to a $1.2 billion overhaul of the I-80 corridor that will replace more than 50-yearold infrastructure over six years as part of Rebuild Illinois,” the Illinois Department of Transportation said Friday in a statement.
Anyone who travels the highway knows improvements are long overdue. The work is part of a push to widen I-80 to three lanes from two in each direction through Will County.
“The new lanes are the latest improvements to I-80, one of the state’s critical travel and freight corridors,” IDOT said.
Yet, Republicans remain strongly opposed to infrastructure. Only 13 House Republicans recently voted with Democrats to approve a $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan. The 13 received death threats after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, called them “traitors.”
Political rivals can stake out opposing ideological positions on energy, immigration, education and a host of other issues. How infrastructure came to be a partisan wedge issue is a mystery. It’s like one side chose to argue the indisputable fact that the sun rises in the east.
As the story goes, Germany’s highway system impressed President Dwight D. Eisenhower when the general led Allied forces in Europe during World War II. As a Republican president during the 1950s, Eisenhower persuaded Congress to authorize spending for America’s interstate highway system.
Crews built much of the network of roads and bridges during the 1960s. Generally, interstates were built with an expected life span of about 50 years. Over the years, engineers learned a lot of design techniques to improve highway safety and save lives.
Stretches such as I-80 through Joliet are not only obsolete, they’re dangerous by today’s standards. Roads and bridges lack shoulders. Lanes are narrower, hills are steeper, curves are sharper.
Infrastructure does not lend itself kindly to libertarian-inspired arguments against taxing and spending. Simply put, roads and bridges reach the end of their useful life, and no amount of maintenance can prolong the inevitable. Highways must either
be replaced or shut down.
Shutting down highways would have catastrophic effects on commerce and the economy.
Those opposed to the principle that government is needed to serve the collective good might argue it would be better to privatize highways. Charging tolls instead of collecting motor fuel taxes is a debate about how to finance construction. The need for improvements, however, remains constant.
Opposing infrastructure is like arguing against science itself, that political will could somehow overcome the forces of time, gravity, entropy and decay. Refusing to support infrastructure spending won’t make the problems go away. If anything, delays increase costs as labor and materials become more expensive over time.
The best explanation for infrastructure opposition is that spending tax dollars to rebuild roads and bridges generally benefits Democratic interests more than Republican concerns.
Political action groups associated with labor unions such as Countryside-based International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 tend to support Democrats more than Republicans. Given GOP opposition to infrastructure, how can you blame unions for favoring Democratic candidates?
But ideological opposition to infrastructure reveals the dangerously flawed trajectory of the GOP. In 2018, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner was happy to claim credit for the $47 million New Lenox project during a groundbreaking ceremony.
“I-80 is one of the busiest, interstates anywhere in America,” Rauner said at the time. “It’s the lifeblood of the economy in Illinois. It is the core of our quality of life. We need to make sure that I-80 is expanded, that it’s safe.”
In 2019, former state Rep. Margo McDermed, a Republican from Mokena, said a poll revealed infrastructure was the No. 1 concern of constituents in her solidly red 37th District.
McDermed was one of several Republican state legislators who voted for Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s $45 billion Rebuild Illinois program. She then opted to not seek another term.
Her political career path is similar to that of U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Channahon. Kinzinger was one of the 13 House Republicans who voted for infrastructure, and he is not seeking another term.
Republicans who support infrastructure face the wrath of GOP extremists like Greene. They seem to take cues from former President Donald Trump, who attacked Senate GOP leader Mitch “Old Crow” McConnell and other Republicans for cooperating on “a terrible Democrat Socialist Infrastructure Plan.”
Some Republican supporters stew in anger over anything resembling a Democratic win, like when Pritzker visited the site of the New Lenox interchange project last month to announce the six-year I-80 reconstruction plan.
Someone needs to stand up to the GOP extremists who think it’s OK for moderate Republicans who support infrastructure to receive death threats. America needs to spend a lot more money to fix roads, bridges, water systems and other infrastructure than the funding already authorized by Congress. More infrastructure legislation will be needed.
Infrastructure needs bipartisan support, and Republicans need to put the brakes on angry rhetoric that threatens safety of highway motorists. Infrastructure spending benefits everyone, not just Democrats.