Having spent most of her life in Little Village, Sara Cortes has gotten used to living with bad-smelling air and a smoggy haze in the summer.
Then, about a year ago, Cortes, 38, was diagnosed with an untreatable lung condition. It leaves her tired and short of breath.
So she said she was shocked to hear about a plan in Springfield to expand the nearby Stevenson Expressway, part of Interstate 55, by widening it to include additional lanes, bringing more traffic and more pollution.
“It’s definitely a concern for me,” Cortes said. “The air quality in Little Village has been bad for a long time.”
Introduced at the tail end of the Illinois legislative session, two measures that promote private funding of road projects are moving quickly through Springfield as state lawmakers try to wrap up their session this week. One is a resolution encouraging state transportation officials to find private funding for the Stevenson expansion through Little Village and other communities. The other is a rewriting of rules to encourage private dollars for state transportation projects.
“Expanding highway capacity will incentivize more driving and more harmful emissions in an area already burdened by high asthma rates and other chronic health problems,” said José Miguel Acosta Córdova of the the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization.
Community, environmental and health organizations oppose the 11th-hour moves to bring private highway funding to Illinois, proposals that are being supported by labor and business groups. They say they fear the moves would result in less oversight and transparency of the planning process involved in approving major road expansions.
In Little Village, the big concern is air pollution. The Southwest Side neighborhood has some of the worst air pollution in Chicago, an analysis last year found. Every day, hundreds of diesel trucks go through the neighborhood to and from the expressway.
“Semi-trucks come through this residential area all of the time,” said Esmeralda Hernandez, 46, a lifelong Little Village resident.
Adding new lanes to the Stevenson near her home won’t improve congestion or pollution, Hernandez said.
“There has to be another answer than putting in more lanes,” she said.
Marc Poulos, executive director of the labor management group for Local 150 International Union of Operating Engineers, said private money is needed to help ensure that road projects get funded. Advocates have wanted to see the state agree enter its first private transportation partnership for years, and the changes are a “modernizing of the statute” that allows such projects, Poulos said.
The widening of the Stevenson has been envisioned since the expressway was built in the 1960s, he said.
The project is among highway building and expansion projects across the country that environmentalists and community groups have criticized, saying new or wider roads that accommodate more traffic will put more cars on the road, adding to air pollution. Research has found that a drop in congestion resulting from highway expansions is often brief, followed by more vehicles on the road — something called induced demand.
Transportation is a top source of greenhouse gas emissions in Illinois. Chicago is a freight hub where two million people live near warehouses enveloped by truck pollution and face heightened respiratory health risks.
Research has shown pollution resulting from roadway traffic in Chicago is concentrated on the South Side and West Side.
Alexis Sanchez, 26, another Little Village resident, said he learned about the proposed plan last week and thinks that the Stevenson expansion would only worsen pollution.
Sanchez said he kept his bedroom window open on a recent note and the smell of diesel exhaust was so bad it woke him up. He’s lived near the Stevenson Expressway almost all of his life and is used to trucks passing through, but that night was an “eye-opener,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m breathing that could potentially affect my health in the future.”
Sanchez’s father Alejandro Sanchez Riviera, 51, is often stuck in traffic on the Stevenson on his way home from work. He said he hopes any added lanes might ease congestion and improve air quality.
“Sometimes, we open the windows, but it feels like we’re just smelling smoke,” he said.
Originally from Mexico City, Sanchez Riviera said he feels at home and close to his roots in Little Village but is disappointed to see little being done to address air pollution.
“It’s a sanctuary for us, and sometimes we get used to what comes with the air, but we need to see some change,” he said. “We don’t know what is in the air.”
Brett Chase’s reporting on the environment and public health is made possible by a grant from The Chicago Community Trust.
