IT WON'T DO ANY GOOD.

Expanding so-called freeways fails.

Until the Illinois Tollway Authority start treating the Tri-State Tollway like a productive asset, the planned expansion (because "Four for the Future" was good for only a generation) to six lanes each way will fail.

In the Chicago area, new and expanded highways have failed again and again to relieve congestion. As the region builds its transportation system of the future, there is no reason to think that applying the same flawed logic to the same transportation problems will work this time.

But until the highway authorities start thinking of their roads as productive assets, which are part of a larger transportation system, which also involves public money for locks, airports, piers, and commuter trains, and pricing all of their services the way a multidivisional business would, the infrastructure will likely continue to be uneconomic and subject to decay.

I'm going to have some time to think about such things while I chase a Big Boy around the Upper Midwest, and there's likely to be a mini-dissertation on what a state department of transportation might do to capture value from all its divisions.